KETO FOR EPILEPSY

KETOGENIC DIETS HAVE BEEN FOUND TO BE SAFE AND EFFECTIVE IN THE LONG-TERM MANAGEMENT OF EPILEPSY IN CHILDREN AND ADULTS

Seizures come in many forms. They may be characterized by violent shaking or simply staring off into space for an extended period’ of time.

A seizure occurs when the nerve cell activity in the brain is disrupted for any particular reason.

Those who experience recurrent seizures are often given a diagnosis of epilepsy. Epilepsy is not a disease but rather the name of a group of neurological disorders characterized by recurring seizures without a known cause.

Approximately 10 percent of people will have a seizure at some point in their lifetime. Of those 10 percent only 30 percent will have a second seizure. When the seizures occur frequently, and with no known underlying cause, it’s called epilepsy.

The condition affects more than 65 million people in the world. Currently, there are many medications available to help treat epilepsy, but approximately 30 percent of people with epilepsy don’t respond to these medications.

KETO ELIMINATE SHORT CIRCUITS IN THE BRAIN’S

Some epileptic individuals may even benefit from surgery, but one of the oldest and least invasive epileptic treatment therapies is the ketogenic diet.

Researchers aren’t entirely sure how a ketogenic diet helps epilepsy, but research shows that the diet may elicit biochemical changes that prevent and eliminate short circuits in the brain’s signaling system that are responsible for the seizures.

Special diets, such as the keto diet, can play a crucial role in controlling seizures. They have shown positive results in both children and adults with refractory seizures.

SOURCE: EPILEPSY.COM/KETO-DIET-CENTER

KETO FOR HEART DISEASE

LOW CARBOHYDRATE KETOGENIC DIETS REDUCE CARDIOVASCULAR RISK FACTOR LEVELS IN OBESE OR OVERWEIGHT PATIENTS

On the other end of the spectrum opponents of the ketogenic diet are also concerned that the diet is just too high in certain nutrients-fat and cholesterol, specifically. The belief is that eating too much fat will eventually lead to high cholesterol in the blood and result in heart troubles such as heart attack and heart disease. There is a great deal of confusion regarding what causes heart disease and whether fat plays as big a role as many believe it does. The quick answer to this is that scientific evidence does not support the theory that increased dietary fat intake leads to high blood cholesterol levels and heart disease.

This may come as a big surprise, especially if you’ve been told the opposite all your life, but to understand this concept you need to understand cholesterol. Cholesterol is not a bad thing. In fact it’s necessary for survival. Cholesterol acts as a precursor to important hormones, including estrogen and testosterone. Your body uses cholesterol to make vitamin D, which plays a role in immune and neuromuscular function, moderates cell growth, and helps maintain calcium levels.

Cholesterol also makes up the outer coating of each one of your cells. Without cholesterol you couldn’t live.
On average the human body contains about 1,000 milligrams of cholesterol at any given time. Most of this cholesterol, about 75 percent, is actually made in the body by your liver. The rest, or 25 percent, comes from the food you eat.

Because your body likes to keep cholesterol within a certain range and does a really good job of regulating it, the amount of cholesterol your liver produces varies based on how much cholesterol you eat. When you eat a lot of dietary cholesterol, the amount of cholesterol your body makes decreases. When the amount of cholesterol in your diet drops, your liver amps up production.

So, what about saturated fat? Although it’s likely you’ve heard that saturated fat increases cholesterol levels and thus your risk of heart disease, most long-term studies have shown that this is not the case.

one study published in the journal Obesity Reviews in 2012 reported that a diet that is high in saturated fat (and low in carbohydrates) actually lowers the risk of developing heart disease by decreasing triglyceride levels, improving blood pressure, decreasing body mass index, and increasing HDL, or good cholesterol.

SOURCE: KETO BASIC PUBLICATION

KETO FOR CANCER

THE KETO DIET: AN ALTERNATIVE THERAPY FOR MALIGNANT BRAIN CANCER

In 1923 a German biochemist named Otto Warburg suggested that cancer is caused by disruptions in normal metabolic processes that result in cancer cells taking up large amounts of energy in the form of glucose and converting it to lactate to produce energy. At the time, the hypothesis was highly controversial, but more recently his theory, which is now deemed the Warburg effect, has gotten some attention.

Cancer cells feed on glucose, but unlike heart, muscle, and brain cells, which can adapt to obtaining energy from ketones, tumor cells can’t get enough energy from ketones. As a result researchers hypothesized that following a ketogenic diet may starve cancer cells of the glucose they need to survive, and eventually they will die off. Like all good theories this one was put to the test on several different occasions.

The first finding of the possibility of a ketogenic diet to help cancer was reported in 1995. Researchers put two brain cancer patients on a ketogenic diet that consisted of 60 percent MCTS (the fats that are found in high concentrations in coconuts), 10 percent other fats, 20 percent protein, and 10 percent carbohydrates. Both patients had aggressive brain tumors that were not responsive to traditional treatments and had been given a poor prognosis. After they followed the diet for a period of time, brain scans showed that the tumors started to shrink.

Another study published in 2007 reported that sixteen brain cancer patients who were instructed to follow a ketogenic diet experienced improvement in symptoms and quality of life.

A third study in 2010 reported that when a sixty-five-year-old brain cancer patient was put on a restricted ketogenic diet, she reported cancer remission and absence of symptoms.

Although there isn’t enough evidence to make conclusive statements about the potential role of the ketogenic diet in brain cancer treatment, the studies are promising.

Emerging evidence suggests that the keto diet can serve as a viable alternative therapy for malignant brain cancer. Studies have shown that this diet can be safely adopted by individuals with brain tumors and effectively induce metabolic changes in both the body and the brain.

SOURCE: AMERICAN ACADEMY OF NEUROLOGY

KETO FOR PARKINSON’S DISEASE

AFTER 28 DAYS ON THE DIET, ALL STUDY PARTICIPANTS REPORTED MODERATE TO SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENTS IN SYMPTOMS

Parkinson’s disease belongs to a group of disorders called motor system disorders. In someone with Parkinson’s the dopamine-producing cells in the brain become destroyed, and the production of the neurotransmitter dopamine declines.

Dopamine controls muscular movement, permitting smooth and fluid motion. After 60 to 80 percent of the dopamine-producing cells in the brain are destroyed, the symptoms of Parkinson’s, which include shaking, tremor, slowness of movement, stiffness, and trouble balancing, begin to appear.

In general Parkinson’s disease begins between the ages of 50 and 65. Approximately 1 percent of people in that age population are affected by the motor system disorder.

A study published in the medical journal Neurology reported that Parkinson’s patients may see an improvement in symptoms when following a ketogenic diet. In the study, which didn’t include a control group, Parkinson’s patients were instructed to follow a ketogenic diet. After 28 days on the diet all study participants reported moderate to very good improvements in symptoms.

Although it is not entirely clear how a ketogenic diet could help improve symptoms in people with Parkinson’s disease, scientists theorize that the ketones may actually bypass the area in the brain that is damaged and provide much-needed energy to other areas in the brain. Another theory is that the ketones, which have an anti-inflammatory effect on the brain, may be able to mend damaged neurons.

In the case of Parkinson’s patients, the presence of ketone bodies has been shown to reduce muscle tremors and stiffness, as well as improve cognitive function. The research findings suggest that incorporating a low-carbohydrate diet, including a ketogenic diet (KD), may have a positive impact on brain function in conditions that result in neuronal damage.

SOURCE: NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE + KETO BASICS PUBLICATION

KETO FOR WEIGHT LOSS

HOW THE KETO DIET HELPS WITH WEIGHT LOSS

When you eat a lot of carbohydrates, your body happily burns them for energy and stores any excess as glycogen in your liver or as triglycerides in your fat cells.

However, by removing carbohydrates from your diet, your body depletes its glycogen stores in the liver and muscles. As a result, it switches to using fat as its primary energy source. This includes both the dietary fat you consume and the stored triglycerides in your fat cells. When your body starts burning stored fat, your fat cells shrink, and you begin to lose weight and become leaner.

Triglycerides are the storage form of fat in your body and the food you eat. When you consume more food than your body needs for energy, the excess is converted into triglycerides and stored in fat cells for future use