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Putting mums on keto diet in New Zealand to help babies suffering from seizures

Quote:

Putting mums on keto diet to help babies suffering from seizures

Newborn babies suffering from seizures could soon be treated using the keto diet.

In a world-first, Canterbury District Health Board dietician Charlene Tan-Smith developed a version of the diet for a mum who has been able to pass on the benefits through her breast milk since her son was 10 months old.

Within a short space of time, mum Bronwen Meredith was seeing a visible difference in her son, Jaxon Pearse, who had suffered seizures since he was six months old, due to a brain bleed suffered at birth.

"He was way more alert. His eyes seemed brighter and he just seemed like he was more with it. All the medications ... they've got a bit of sedation happening with them and there's a whole bunch of side effects of them. We just kind of felt like it had lifted him up."

They opted for the diet after trying three different medications.

And while her son continued to experience micro-seizures, these were much less severe.

Tan-Smith said unlike her work with older children who had been completely cured, this was not possible with Jaxon.

She described her findings as an exciting first step and was keen to do more research if funding allowed.

"I was just hoping to just see any small difference would be very encouraging. But what was quite astounding was when the mum had some amount of ketones in her blood, she noticed almost straight away that her child's physical seizures actually stopped."

Meredith said her son, who was put into end of life care soon after birth, continued to defy the odds, recently celebrating his third birthday.

"He's a sweetheart, he really is, and he shows you every day that you need to be grateful and you need to feel the good stuff and we've got this life here that we can enjoy."

And in a postscript to this story, this week Jaxon underwent a second round of brain surgery at Auckland's Starship Hospital to try to rid him of his seizures once and for all.

Meredith said the surgeon had successfully separated the damaged side of his brain from the still working section, however, it would be a few months before they knew for sure if it had been successful.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/putti...COKWJUYG3XR3GU/

For some reason I am reminded of the first sentence of Robert Lustig's introduction to the 2012 edition of John Yudkin's classic book Pure, White and Deadly:

"Everything old is new again."

It seems low carb eating creates a favorite environment for the brain. We can all use more of that :)

I'm frequently reminded of the value of endogenous ketone production and improved health. This is such a story. While "keto" has become a fad since it was first discussed on this forum, like any fad over time it develops its detractors. While we've learned much about natural ketone production and the benefits of burning fat for energy, certain approaches to the "keto diet" have been shown to be unnecessary, such as the idea of consuming more dietary fat. From my own experiences, I strongly believe there is value in adjusting one's diet to where fat burning for energy is natural and can occur frequently (daily). That can be done successfully without emphasizing fat consumption by eating healthy lower carb vegetables and emphasizing healthy protein. It's important to know how the natural production of ketones benefits humans in many ways. It's especially nice to read the story of Jaxon and to know that he and his family have benefited from a keto approach.

When I first read "Putting mums on keto diet..." I thought of my own mum who we brought home from assisted living at age 86 to eat low carb real food and more protein instead of processed institutional food. She was way more alert. Her eyes seemed brighter and she just seemed like she was more with it for the rest of her life ('til 90).