High Fat & Low Carb Foods: An Epileptic Diet
Hi everyone! Epilepsy awareness day or purple day is celebrated every year on March 26th. This day marks the importance to raise awareness among the people of the world about this brain disorder known as epilepsy. Here we are today to let you all know about epilepsy and raise awareness on diet and lifestyle-related risk factors contributing to epilepsy.
How do you define Epilepsy?
Epilepsy is a neurological condition that causes unprovoked, recurrent seizures — which is a sudden rush of abnormal electrical activity in the brain. This disease is affecting more than 50 million people around the world according to WHO.
Symptoms of epilepsy —
- Focal aware seizures, previously called simple partial seizures include alterations to the sense of taste, smell, sight, hearing or touch, dizziness, tingling, and twitching of limbs.
- Focal unaware seizures previously called complex partial seizures involve loss of consciousness, staring blankly, unresponsiveness, performing repetitive movements.
Doctors diagnose epilepsy when you have two or more seizures. Anyone can develop epilepsy but it is most commonly seen in children and older adults.
Diet and lifestyle-related interventions to prevent epilepsy —
Studies have found that people with epileptic seizures have been also diagnosed with high cholesterol levels, and higher body fat compared to those who were normal in their body fat. Though most (60–65%) epileptic patients become seizure-free with anti-epileptic drug treatment, there is increasing concern on how far we can rely on drugs. Several studies urge for the need of awareness on behavior-related habits which may predispose to further complications in epileptic patients. Studies have also shown that the overall level of physical activity was significantly lower in epileptic individuals in a case-control study.
We all know by now that stress is relieved by staying physically active, either by involving in a sport or by running with some music on! It is also proven that stress leads to a lot of other metabolic-related disorders, it is important to reduce the stress and get some sound sleep. Stress is also believed to trigger seizures and physical activity could be one such factor to help reduce stress and ultimately the chances of seizures.
Ketogenic diet and its efficiency in controlling seizures
A ketogenic diet usually works well because of the production of decanoic acid as it is found to have anti-seizure activity. It mainly aims to be on low glycemic index treatment with low carbs overall. This diet can be applicable for children who have not responded to any of the anti-seizure treatments. Though it works well for children, it becomes difficult for an adult to follow a seizure diet as it is more restrictive. A modified plan as per the person’s likes and dislikes works well in the case of adults which can be carried out with a professional’s help. Recently studies have proven that even infants can be started with dietary therapy for epilepsy.
There is currently no evidence on any food that continuously triggers seizures in people with epilepsy. But when a person is reflex epileptic — a condition in which seizures happen in response to certain triggers, must take these foods into consideration and avoid them.
- Some artificial colors, preservatives, monosodium glutamate, or artificial sweeteners can trigger seizures in some people.
- Grape juice and pomegranate juice do not trigger seizures but can have some side effects related to a few epileptic medications.
- Caffeine found in coffee, tea, and cola has a stimulating effect on the central nervous system. Some reports suggest that caffeine may increase the chances of occurrence of seizures and might affect how well anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs) work.
In the case of epilepsy, the ketogenic diet is a medical treatment that needs to be carried out under the supervision of a dietitian and epilepsy specialist. Epileptic patients need more care and awareness on diet therapy and physical activity to control and prevent seizures.
References:
https://www.healthline.com/health/epilepsy
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8243538/
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/284596
https://www.epilepsy.com/learn/treating-seizures-and-epilepsy/dietary-therapies/ketogenic-diet
