Brain Science
For perhaps the first time in history doctors are telling some of their patients to eat more bacon and mayonnaise. Not to mention extra butter and ice cream.
The catch is that this prescription is directed only at children with epilepsy. As many as 70 percent of seizure-prone kids improve when fed a "ketogenic diet" loaded with fat but extremely low in carbohydrates, says neurologist David Sperry, M.D., of Dallas Pediatric Neurology Associates. About a third of the time, the seizures disappear completely. Though researchers don't fully understand why the regimen works, it appears that ketones--chemicals produced when our bodies digest fat--block the abnormal electrical signals in the brain that cause seizures.
What's especially remarkable is that at Dr. Sperry's clinic, patients who respond to the diet have already tried, without success, an average of five standard medications. Still, the ketogenic approach is far from being the first choice of treatment for epilepsy. "It's nowhere as easy as taking a pill," Dr. Sperry says. "It requires carefully measuring everything that's put in a kid's mouth." Moreover, the risk of hypoglycemia and other side effects requires that patients receive medical supervision and blood tests.
