Epilepsy is a common neurological disease with a prevalence of approximately 0.4% to 1%. It affects people of all ages and races and of both sexes.
There are many different types of epilepsy. Long efforts have been made to treat these different types of epilepsy, and finally, great success has been achieved in suppressing seizures with drugs with the appropriate mechanism of action. While 70% of epilepsy patients can be treated with a single drug, 30% of them have persistent seizures. These patients may need to use multiple drugs or apply to epilepsy surgery. Therefore, alternative treatments are needed for epilepsy patients. Functional foods and bioactive foods can be considered as part of alternative therapy.
The ketogenic diet is one of the nutritional methods that provides satisfactory results in epilepsy patients. The ketogenic diet is an effective non-pharmacological treatment for resistant epilepsy. It has been found to be very useful especially in childhood epilepsy. ketogenic diet; It is a diet rich in fat, low in carbohydrates and containing sufficient protein. Fatty foods such as vegetable oils, fats, mayonnaise, avocados, nuts, seeds, olives, and full-fat dairy products form an important part of the diet. Carbohydrate-rich foods such as bread, potatoes, rice, and pasta are not suitable for the ketogenic diet, but there are good recipes for ketogenic varieties of crispbread, pasta, waffles, cakes, and desserts. The ketogenic diet is a treatment option for patients of all ages with pharmaco-resistant epilepsy. Constipation, vomiting, diarrhea, weight loss, decreased energy and hunger are the most common side effects reported in children during the first trimester of the classic or modified ketogenic diet. It requires close follow-up in terms of gastrointestinal risks in the short term and cardiovascular risks in the long term. With close follow-up and dietary adjustments, these negative effects disappear or decrease in a short time.
When the ketogenic diet is difficult to implement, alternative diets can be recommended to patients. Low glycemic index treatment, which is one of the alternative ketogenic diets, aims to keep blood glucose levels minimal and stable, and in this way, epileptic seizures are controlled. Compared to the classical ketogenic diet, this diet allows more carbohydrates (approximately 10% of the energy, 40-60 g/day low glycemic index carbohydrates) and protein (25% of the energy), thus more food consumption.
In some studies, it has been determined that functional foods and bioactive foods such as omega 3, vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin B6, vitamin C and privat reduce the frequency of seizures in epilepsy patients. Overall, some positive efficacy has been reported.
