Definition: A specialized diet sometimes used as a treatment for young children with epilepsy who continue to have seizures despite taking traditional or standard anticonvulsant medications.
Children on the ketogenic diet get most of their calories from high-fat foods and are restricted from eating many carbohydrate and protein containing foods.
The ketogenic diet is sometimes used to treat children with tonic, myoclonic, atonic seizures and:
- Infantile spasms
- Lennox-Gastaut syndrome
- Atypical absence seizures
Treatment with the ketogenic diet includes a starvation phase, which is often started in a hospital, and includes a fast. It then goes on to a strict maintenance phase, in which parents must weigh food to get the right balance of fats, carbs, and protein in each meal. Parents work with a dietician and doctor to help make the diet work.
Also Known As: Keto Diet
Examples:
Young children are sometimes placed on the ketogenic diet -- a high-fat, low-carbohydrate, low-protein diet -- when they have difficulty controlling seizures.
