Ketogenic Diets

Medical Use

The ketogenic diet is a high-fat, adequate-protein, low-carbohydrate diet that in medicine is used primarily to treat difficult-to-control (refractory) epilepsy in children. The diet forces the body to burn fats rather than carbohydrates. Normally, the carbohydrates contained in food are converted into glucose, which is then transported around the body and is particularly important in fuelling brain-function.

If there is very little carbohydrate in the diet, the liver converts fat into fatty acids and ketone bodies. The ketone bodies pass into the brain and replace glucose as an energy source. An elevated level of ketone bodies in the blood, a state known as ketosis, leads to a reduction in the frequency of epileptic seizures.

The original therapeutic diet for pediatric epilepsy provides just enough protein for body growth and repair, and sufficient calories to maintain the correct weight for age and height. This classic ketogenic diet contains a 4:1 ratio by weight of fat to combined protein and carbohydrate. This is achieved by excluding high-carbohydrate foods such as starchy fruits and vegetables, bread, pasta, grains and sugar, while increasing the consumption of foods high in fat such as nuts, cream and butter.

Most dietary fat is made of molecules called long-chain triglycerides (LCTs). However, medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs) — made from fatty acids with shorter carbon chains than LCTs—are more ketogenic. A variant of the classic diet known as the MCT ketogenic diet uses a form of coconut oil, which is rich in MCTs, to provide around half the calories. As less overall fat is needed in this variant of the diet, a greater proportion of carbohydrate and protein can be consumed, allowing a greater variety of food choices.

Weight Loss Diets

The Atkins Diet, was potentially a ketogenic diet. I'm not sure how much Dr Atkins understood that.

The New Atkins Diet is certainly firmly based in science and is ketogenic, although they don't say much about that in their publicity.

Paleo diets, might or might not be ketogenic, depending on the knowledge of the participants.

The Banting Diet, is promoted by The Real Meal Revolution, and is also heavily based on the latest science. The Banting Diet makes achieving ketosis a prime objective. A sensible first step is to change what you eat for breakfast.

Defensive Dietary Strategy

It's now commonly understood, that spending some time in ketosis might be helpful in reducing the viability of pre-cancers, so that the immune system might identify them and eliminate them.

If Alzheimer's disease or dementia, concern you, living in ketosis might provide a preventative strategy.

There are also suggestions that ketosis is helpful in several other medical conditions. Since it's a relatively inexpensive and very safe intervention, the downside of an experiment in living a Banting Lifestyle, is worth a try, if you have health concerns. There is a long list on medical problems where this might be applicable advice.

Are You Banting?

The Banting Diet, is strongly science based, and The Real Meal Revolution, make a strong effort to teach you about the science, so that you become a well informed person.

Banting, involves quite a lifestyle change for most of us. So there is likely to be a lengthy lead-in time before you actually make the switch. Alternatively, you make the commitment to switch, and you struggle to sustain that amount of change all at once.

Either way, there's a limit to what you can learn from web sites and books, or videos. It's very valuable to be able to ring up someone with good knowledge, or send an email, and ask a question.

You should give the Banting Lifestyle a go. You should try to do it with a support system in place.

Nutritional Ketosis for Kids

The classic therapeutic ketogenic diet was developed for treatment of pediatric epilepsy in the 1920s and was widely used into the next decade, but its popularity waned with the introduction of effective anticonvulsant drugs. In the mid-1990s, Hollywood producer Jim Abrahams, whose son's severe epilepsy was effectively controlled by the diet, created the Charlie Foundation to promote it.

Publicity included an appearance on NBC's Dateline programme and ...First Do No Harm (1997), a made-for-television film starring Meryl Streep. The foundation sponsored a multicentre research study, the results of which—announced in 1996—marked the beginning of renewed scientific interest in the diet.