Dr Tanya JW McDonald discusses the use of low carb (otherwise known as ketogenic) diets for patients with epilepsy, Alzheimer’s Disease, malignant glioma and other neurological conditions.

Remarkably, low carb diets have been used successful to treat  patients with epilepsy for 100 years, but fell out of favour when drugs were developed. However, in recent years there has been a resurgence in the use of these diets, and studies suggest that around 50% of pediatric and 40% of adult patients whose epilepsy is resistant to drug therapy can be helped with a low carb diet.

And in malignant glioma, a form of brain cancer, some research now suggests that tumour cells prefer glucose. So following a low carb diet cuts sugar, removing this potential cancer cell fuel source.

So is it possible that food can access neurological pathways that drugs can’t? And what implications does this have for the treatment of other neurological diseases?

Dr Tanya J. W. McDonald is a neurologist based at Johns Hopkins Hospital in the US. She focuses on the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy and seizures. Her particular interests include dietary therapies for adults with epilepsy, evaluations for seizure surgery and epilepsy in women.

The host of the podcast, Liz Tucker is an award winning medical journalist and former BBC producer and director.  You can follow Liz on Twitter at https://twitter.com/lizctucker and read her Substack newsletter about the podcast at https://liztucker.substack.com

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