Day 159-2 (R, 120607) — Epilepsy, Inflammation, and Primal Living

Combining Thoughts.  Mark Sisson has often written about inflammation and how it is related to diet.

• What is Inflammation?
• What’s All This Talk About Inflammation?
• Flame Thrower: Top 10 Natural Ways to Reduce Inflammation
• My Top Six Anti-Inflammatory Foods
• How Does Inflammation Cause Heart Disease?

And hundreds of others posts besides these.

The other day, I came across an article in the New York Times about the connection between epilepsy and inflammation: New Epilepsy Tactic – Fight Inflammation

The answer they propose?  Mega-doses of drugs: steroids, other anti-inflammatories, and experimental drugs.

Sometimes, drugs are the answer — modern medicine has brought us untold advances in both quantity and quality of life (polio, cholera, dysentery, malaria, etc.) — but the idea of using a low-carb diet to improve seizures is not a new one.

I just wish the experts, and the journalists who report on these things, would suggest changing the patient’s diet before they head straight to the syringe.

See also:

• Low Carb, High Protein Diet Reduces Seizure Rate in Epilepsy Sufferers | Mark’s Daily Apple
• Modified Atkins Diet Can Cut Epileptic Seizures In Adults
• Diet Of Whipping Cream, Butter, Vegetable Oil Can Help Control Epileptic Seizures In Many Children
• 282: Dr. Deborah Snyder On The Low-Carb Cure For Epilepsy | The Livin La Vida Low-Carb Show
• The Ketogenic Diet: One Decade Later

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Yes, I realize that the boy in this article “also follows the ketogenic diet, a high-fat, low-carbohydrate regimen that has proved beneficial for many with intractable epilepsy” but it’s mentioned as an afterthought, something tossed on literally at the end of the story.  The point of the article is the drugs.