Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by transient excessive or synchronous neuronal activity that leads to seizures. This condition is most likely to occur in children, and is reported in infants too. While surgery and medication are options for management of epilepsy, in children, these are mostly not safe and advisable. Nutritional management however, is a very potent and effective option.
A ketogenic diet is one of the more common and preferred nutritional management methods for epilepsy in children as well as infants. A high-fat, adequate-protein, low-carbohydrate diet, the Ketogenic diet is used primarily to treat difficult-to-control epilepsy in children. At its core, this diet mimics aspects of starvation by forcing the body to burn fats rather than carbohydrates. The classic ketogenic diet contains a 4:1 ratio by weight of fat to combined protein and carbohydrate. This is traditionally prepared by excluding high-carbohydrate foods such as starchy fruits and vegetables, bread, pasta, grains and sugar, while increasing the consumption of foods high in fat such as cream and butter. Alternately, these can be purchased ready made from a medical store.
Commercially available ketogenic diet powders like Nutricia Ketocal 4:1 are a complete and accurate mix of nutritional requirements needed to effectively manage and control epilepsy in infants. It is a nutritionally complete, powdered product which can be used to administer the classical 4:1 ratio ketogenic diet for children over 1 year of age. With a convenient one step preparation with a non modular approach, it is also an easy to use product. The nutrients in this powder are dense for children with low energy requirements.
Products like the Nutricia Ketocal 4:1 are complete or supplemental nutritional support for children with intractable epilepsy, they help maintain a high level of ketosis, and have a shelf life of 9 months on an average.
A ketogenic diet like this is known to be very effective in managing and controlling epilepsy in children. Even though the diet has never been evaluated in a controlled scientific study, studies that have followed children on the diet for long periods reveal that 1/3 of children treated with the ketogenic diet have greater than 90% seizure control with half of these children becoming seizure free. The remaining 1/3 discontinue the diet due to its ineffectiveness or its difficulty.
For parents struggling to help their young ones with epilepsy and its management, a balanced and effective ketogenic diet is the elixir to happy and tension free life that they have been always looking for.
You may also want to check out this one on Nutricia Neocate Junior.
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