Why would I grill my doctor for not wanting to put my son on a restrictive, potentially growth-inhibiting program when we was already underweight and we could control his seizures with other means?

This seems a fairly good summary of the plan, and the doubts about it's long-term effects are mentioned. No, it doesn't name the potential problems. The uncertainty alone would give reason enough not to implement it when other means were found to help. (Which means the plan wouldn't be necessary for him anyway...)

http://w3.ouhsc.edu/neuro/division/cope/ketogen.htm


Here are some of the articles I read.

http://www.childbrain.com/seizure6.shtml

http://my.webmd.com/hw/epilepsy/aa138104.asp

http://www.epilepsy.com/epilepsy/ketogenic_diet.html

This one seems less restrictive, and does mention more vegetables and also artificial sweeteners...

http://www.theuniversityhospital.co...togenicdiet.htm

Relax Potatoefree,
Nobody's questioning your descision to choose the treatment for your child's epilepsy as you see fit. You originally commented on this issue because I had used the success of the Ketogenic diet in very young children as practical evidence of very low carbohydrate diets being perfectly healthy for that age group. I have looked at the above links and the two that actually mention the possibility of growth rate risks are obviously both lifted in their brevity from the same superficial and you'd have to admit , alarmist source listing the 'possible' risks of the Ketogenic diet. As I said before and I'm still waiting for any credible evidence to the contrary, growth or development problems have never, and I repeat never been reported or even properly studied as a possible risk of the Ketogenic diet. That some members of the medical profession are so dumfounded by the counterintuitive success of such a diet on the health as well as seizure frequency of young epileptics that they have to suggest purely speculative risks, is surely a bit like the tendency of others to suggest similarly speculative risks of a low carb diet in adults, like kidney stones and cardiovascular disease because the medical paradigm they subscribe so strongly suggests that they are likely. Perhaps they should actually check with long term low carbers (or the parents of epileptic kids whose enthusiastic and grateful parents correspond with each other on boards such as this) to see how wrong they are.

I'm really glad you have your child's epilepsy sorted. But please don't let that blind you to at best uninformed and rather more likely, highly irresponsible mischievous criticism of a time honoured and completely safe dietary protocol. That it is universally regarded as difficult to follow, says more about the officially sanctioned dietary madness the rest of the western world indulges in, rather than any intrinsic difficulty of the diet itself.

Potatofree, if you really think that because a few medical writers wildly speculate about 'possible' risks in very young children of an extremely low carb diet that such a diet is dangerous then good luck to you. My kids' teeth, bones, immune system, confidence, skin , hair.... did I miss anything.... in fact the whole kit and caboodle (including the interminable food battle I remember from my own childhood of reconciling my parents trying to steer me towards healthy food choices with the common knowledge that the 'other' stuff tasted way better -despite modern fruit breeders attempts to redress the imbalance ), may just be streets ahead of their food pyramid fed peers because I am not so susceptible to the dietary nonsense popularized by the current status quo. But I might reiterate, the child equivalent of the 70g/ day suggested in 'Life without Bread' is probably more manageable anyway.

Well...... in all due respect, when it's YOUR child, you don't want to offer them up as a guinea pig. I hope and pray for you that your children in the future are perfect, strong and healthy and thrive on whatever way you choose to feed them.

The people who suggest that the human diet should be composed largely of plant material, a.k.a. carbohydrate, had no hesitation what so ever in conducting a global experiment using the entire planet’s human population as “guinea pigs”. There were no studies, no experiments, nothing but the blind acceptance of horrifically flawed logic, applied to a so-called study that can easily be shown to be worthless, the infamous “Seven Countries Study” by the late Ancel Keys.

The fundamental rule for medical doctors practicing in the US is known as “Standard of Care”. Adherence to this standard provides the MD with virtual immunity from any legal liability for any “unfortunate” outcomes that may occur. As applied to the Ketogenic diet for epilepsy, this means it may only be used ethically as the treatment of last resort, after ALL “conventional”, (read as PAHRMACOLOGICAL), remedies have been given a “fair” chance to fail. I, personally, believe that this principal is the primary reason that the Ketogenic diet is not the treatment of choice. If pharmacological intervention was permitted only after the diet failed the market for these drugs would not be large enough to measure. Further, the diet is made unnecessarily complex simply to protect the current dietary religion of the professional dietitian.

In my view, a low carb diet is good for people of any age. Even at a strict 20 carbs a day, if a child eats adequate calories and takes in enough vitamins and minerals, I don't see how low carbing could be harmful. If I had to choose a high carb diet or an induction-level low carb diet for my child, I would go with the lc one. Sure a child may have a high metabolism, but I don't see why that should compel us to give them more sugar, unless they need to do lots of wind sprints

Serre

To bring this tangent waaaayyyy around to the original point, whatever way of eating you impose on your child is your own responsibility. IF that feeding method begins to show itself to be detrimental to your child, whether it be high-carb, low-carb, or mysterious grassy-smelling stuff... you have the basic responsibility to seek help and change what you're doing. Even IF you feel so superior to the medical establishment that you just KNOW they are all helplessly misguided.

If the parents in the article had been able to do this, their child may still be alive.

Exactly Potatofree...no matter what I believed, if my baby was five months old and weighed just 7 pounds, I'd feed her whatever was necessary, personal beliefs aside, to help her live.

In this case, religious fanaticism (and hardcore veganism is more or less the same thing) once again took its toll not on the fanatics, but on an innocent. Seems to happen all too often.

BTW, I don't even think you could call these idiots vegans. Any self-respecting vegan knows how to combine their grains and veggies to ensure complete proteins are eaten........where's the protein in "The bottle she drank from shortly before her death contained a mixture of wheat grass, spinach, tomato and avocado." Makes me want to go over there and........eeee never mind.

I read an interesting article online (can't find it NOW, of course) about low term vegans eventually depleting the B12 stores in their liver and being seriously underdiagnosed for the side effects of B12 deficiency, which were mostly mental, such as: rigid thought processes, paranoia, and bursts of rage.

Err, sounds like some vegetarian conversations I've had...

It also mentioned that strict vegan Buddhists came down with aplastic anemia when they immigrated to Great Britain, because in their native countries there were insects in the grain they ate...in western countries this was not the case, and they became quite sick.

Hi. I just wanted to clearify what the thymus is and what it does. it is a small gland (aka the thymus gland), that is located above the pericarium (the sac that surrounds the heart). The thymus is where one type of white blood cells, the T-Cells, develop into mature T-Cells. T-Cells are invovled in cell mediated immunity- attacking and killing of pathogens (bacteria, viruses, fungi, etc) in a systematic way.

The thymus is more active early in life, and it does shrivel up as you age. And you can survive without it. When newborns/infants have heart surgery, it is my understanding that the thymus is removed (just because of the location). So there are thousands of kids who live without one.

Hope this helps!

I have to side with Potatofree on this. And believe me, I am usually against using medications. But when you have a child that is having seizures (my brother has a seizure disorder) and you know that every single seizure they have increases the chance of irreparable brain damage right there in that moment, well I think most people would go with what is going to stop the seizures the quickest and most reliably.

Ketogenic diets do not stop seizures for everyone and why risk your child's brain by letting them continue to have seizures if there is medication that will stop them right away.

Try watching someone you love having a seziure right in front of you while your powerless to stop it or even to know when it will stop (and you know that every additional minute could bring on more brain damage) and see what you would choose.

-J

The Ketogenic Diet is recommended for children that medication does not help. I was recently counseled on this as I have a child in my first grade class room with this problem. They are using a modified Atkins. The studies quoted by the doctor in her case said Atkins worked as well and was easier to follow - it is also better understood by others she has to deal with.

That's a good thing, judyr. From what I've read, understanding of the diet and compliance by everyone who took care of a child seemed to be the hardest part.

Sound backwards... you would think the diet should be tried before the drugs. Some doctors seem to want to solve everything with drugs.