<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

I'm sure many of you watched Dateline Wednesday, July 23, which featured a
story about the epileptic son of filmmaker Jim Abrahams and the successful
treatment of his son's seizures with the "ketogenic diet":

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MSNBC News
Dateline July 23, 2003
Diet as possible epilepsy treatment?
Father searches for answers to son’s debilitating disease
http://msnbc.com/news/900136.asp?0sl=-41
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The ketogenic diet features generous use of fats, carefully controlling
protein and carbohydrates, and forbidding sugar and starch.  The diet had
its origins as an epileptic seizure treatment over 70 years ago... well
before anyone knew or understood that gluten could be the cause of many
disease symptoms.  Curiously enough, people do not understand how the
ketogenic diet actually works.

I tried to find details about what foods are used in and excluded from the
ketogenic diet on the internet, but few such details are given on public
websites.  I guess the excuse is the fear that if the information is given,
people will try the diet without medical supervision.  But I suspect the
real reason is to protect the profit interests of clinics that offer
ketogenic diet therapy.  I did manage to determine that sugar and starch
are forbidden.  Hence, the ketogenic diet is a gluten-free diet.

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"Some doctors doubted that children could be kept on such a strict diet,
one that forbids sugar and starch. What child would not try to sneak a
cookie, or even a piece of bread?"

Johns Hopkins Magazine, April 1995
High Fat and Seizure Free
Melissa Hendricks
http://www.jhu.edu/~jhumag/495web/fat.html
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Since there is a well-known association between celiac disease and some
forms of epilepsy in medical science, is it the fact that gluten is
excluded from the ketogenic diet that explains its success?  Perhaps those
families whose children are now on the ketogenic diet need to learn about
celiac disease and have their children screened for CD, especially since it
is common for children to go off of the ketogenic diet after 2 years or so
and return to an unrestricted diet without having their seizures recur.  If
these children do, in fact, have celiac disease, obviously they need to
remain on a diet free of gluten.

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J Child Neurol. 2002 Nov;17(11):800-6.

Epilepsy, occipital calcifications, and oligosymptomatic celiac disease in
childhood.

Arroyo HA, De Rosa S, Ruggieri V, de Davila MT, Fejerman N; Argentinean
Epilepsy and Celiac Disease Group.

Department of Neurology, Hospital Nacional de Pediatria JP Garrahan, Buenos
Aires, Argentina. [log in to unmask]

The association of epilepsy, occipital calcifications, and celiac disease
has been recognized as a distinct syndrome. The objective of this study was
to present the clinical, electrophysiologic, and neuroradiologic features
in a series of patients with this syndrome. Thirty-two patients with the
constellation of epilepsy, occipital calcifications, and celiac disease
were identified in our epilepsy clinic. The mean age was 11 years and the
mean length of follow-up was 7.4 years. The 1990 criteria of the European
Society of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition were used to diagnose
celiac disease. The Kruskal-Wallis statistics test was employed with a
signficance of P < .05. Thirty-one patients had partial seizures, 21 of
them with symptoms related to the occipital lobe. In most patients, the
epilepsy was controlled or the seizures were sporadic. Three developed
severe epilepsy. Occipital calcifications were present in all cases.
Computed tomography in 7 patients showed hypodense areas in the white
matter around calcifications, which decreased or disappeared after a period
of gluten-free diet in 3 patients. A favorable outcome of epilepsy was
detected in patients with the earliest dietary therapy. This study presents
the largest series of children with this syndrome outside Italy. White-
matter hypodensities surrounding calcifications are rarely reported. A
prompt diagnosis of celiac disease might improve the evolution of the
epilepsy and may improve cognitive status.

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* Please remember some posters may be WHEAT-FREE, but not GLUTEN-FREE *