CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) – Researchers at UVA Health say they have identified how the ketogenic diet helps prevent seizures in patients whose epilepsy does not respond to medication — a discovery that could lead to new treatment options.
The findings come from a study led by scientists at the UVA Brain Institute, offering new insight into why the high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet has long been used to treat drug-resistant epilepsy.
Researchers say understanding how the diet works could allow scientists to develop treatments that deliver the same benefits without requiring patients to follow the highly restrictive eating plan.
“It has promise for developing new treatments that do not depend on an extreme fat diet,” said Dr. Jaideep Kapur, Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience at the University of Virginia. “When medications fail, we could add that to their treatment and see if that can help.”
The ketogenic diet has been used for decades to help control seizures in patients who do not respond to traditional anti-seizure medications. However, researchers say the diet can be difficult for many patients to tolerate long-term.
By identifying the biological process behind the diet’s effects, scientists say future therapies could offer another option for patients with hard-to-treat epilepsy. Researchers add that further studies are needed, and the findings could eventually have implications beyond epilepsy, potentially applying to other neurological conditions.
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