If you suffer from seizures, you know how difficult it can be to control them. A seizure is an uncontrollable shaking motion of either your whole body or one part of your body with different levels of unconsciousness. Some people go completely unconscious while others go partially unconscious. A seizure is a single episode of that event, while epilepsy is a condition where you have multiple or ongoing seizures.
There are different things that can trigger a seizure, including fever, head injury, infection in the brain, choking, alcohol or drug withdrawal, extremely low blood sugar, certain drugs and toxins, various types of stress, or even high blood pressure. While there are many theories as to what causes a seizure, typically it is a hyperexcitability of a nerve.
There are various medications that can be used to help control seizures, but they often come with many side effects. However, there is an alternative that may be able to help: the ketogenic diet.
What is the Ketogenic Diet?
The ketogenic diet is a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet that has been shown to have many benefits, including weight loss, improved blood sugar control, and improved cognitive function. The diet works by forcing the body into a state of ketosis, where it burns fat for fuel instead of carbohydrates.
While the ketogenic diet has been around for decades, it has only recently been studied as a potential treatment for seizures. In fact, the ketogenic diet is a great marketing strategy to position it as a secondary option to try if the drugs don’t work first, but the truth is that there are hardcore data that shows that the ketogenic diet is very effective at eliminating seizures by a factor of 50 to 70 percent.
How the Ketogenic Diet Works for Seizures
The ketogenic diet works by getting you into a state of deeper ketosis. Ketones are a byproduct of fat, and they are the answer to seizures and many other brain problems. Ketones stabilize the excitability of your neurons, and if your neurons are hyper-excited and out of control, ketones can calm them down. Ketones also modulate or control neurotransmitters.
For the ketogenic diet to be effective for seizures, the ratio of fat to protein needs to be higher than the standard ketogenic diet. In this specific type of epilepsy diet, the ratio is four times more fat than protein. This ratio gets you into deeper ketosis, and the deeper in ketosis you are, the better the results for your brain.
Dirty Keto vs. Epilepsy Keto
There are several big differences between the ketogenic diet used for seizures for children and the ketogenic diet that you may be on right now. The big difference is that they are using, especially for children, probably the dirtiest keto diet that you can be on. The ingredients are so unhealthy, and the definition of dirty keto is that you are using any type of ingredients that you can find regardless of quality as long as the carbohydrates are low.
With this diet pertaining to epilepsy, you are using a slightly different ratio, and you’re using more fat to protein, so it’s like four to one. What that’s going to do is get you into deeper ketosis.
In conclusion, if you suffer from seizures, you may want to consider trying the ketogenic diet. While it may not work for everyone, the evidence suggests that it can be effective in eliminating seizures by a factor of 50 to 70 percent. Talk to your doctor about the possibility of using the ketogenic diet as a treatment option for your seizures. With the proper guidance and supervision, the ketogenic diet may be the answer you have been searching for.
