Treating Epilepsy With Ketogenic Nutrition
January 7, 2010 by Weight Loss Tips
The ketogenic diet is based on a process called ketosis. It is a specific state of the organism, which is characterized by an elevated level of ketones in the blood, which occurs due to the conversion of fats into fatty acids and ketones. This occurs when the organism gets only small amounts of carbohydrates over a period of time. When you start with such a diet, your body goes through several changes. After 24-48 hours since the beginning of this diet, the body starts to use ketones in order to use the energy stored in fat cells more efficiently. In other words, your primary source of energy become fatty acids, instead of glucose. Because of that, during ketosis it is not a problem to eat food with higher amounts of fat, than would otherwise seem reasonable. This way the body is rapidly losing weight (specifically fat). In addition, the loss of muscle tissue (proteins) is minimal, since the vast majority of food consumed during ketosis, also contains relatively large amounts of proteins that are good for your muscles.
Ketogenic diet is also known to be able to help people with epilepsy. Epilepsy is a relatively common neurological condition, affecting more than 50 million people over the world. People with epilepsy are known to have unprovoked seizures. When this happens, the normal function of the brain is disrupted, and may affect muscles, senses and even consciousness. There are basically two types of seizures, either it is concentrated on one part of the brain, or it is spread widely throughout the brain, possibly leading to a total loss of consciousness. There are many methods for healing epilepsy, most patients (about 60%) successfully treat epilepsy with the help of drugs, but about 30% of patients don’t achieve control with the help of drugs. They unfortunately need to take more drastic measures in preventing and eventually curing this condition.
Ketogenic diet is not only used in reducing body fat and overall weight. Another, probably less known feature of this diet is that it helps people with epilepsy reduce the frequency of seizures, or even become seizure-free. Many studies have been made on this topic, and it has been scientifically proven that the ketogenic type of diet is very effective. It has been found that people with epilepsy could reduce the frequency of seizures by at least 50% (in one half of the patients that tried this diet). In one third of the tested patients, there was a even greater reduction of seizure, reaching 90% reduction of seizure frequency.
Thanks to the ketogenic diet, many children and adults that have epilepsy, have found a way to make their lives simpler and more enjoyable by finding this diet to be effective in lowering the frequency of seizures that they have.
Find practical information about loose weight really fast – please make sure to go through the publication. The times have come when concise information is really only one click of your mouse, use this chance.
Comments
TV’s Fitness and Weight Loss Guru
Get Free Stuff
-