The Benefits of Butter

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, today's post is about the neural benefits of, you guessed it--FOOD. Fatty, delicious food.

But seriously, a recent article in the New York Times discusses something called the Ketogenic Diet, which has been purported to significantly decrease the number of seizures in people suffering from epilepsy.

Though alleged "food cures" have been around for over a century (diabetes, anyone?),

the Ketogenic Diet is especially notorious for its apparently indulgent facade. To put it in perspective, a hypothetical day spent practicing the Ketogenic Diet would have you gorging approximately 90% of your calories from fat, 8% from protein and the last 2% from carbohydrates (as visually displayed in the pie-no pun intended-chart below).

Yeah. I know. This sounds bizarre. But, according to this scientific article published in Epilepsia, it actually works. Though it does not actually "cure" epilepsy, per se, it has been shown to dramatically reduce the number of seizures experienced in epileptic patients, especially those who are children.

The Ketogenic Diet, or Keto (as called by its loyal fans/practitioners) works by forcing the body to burn fat instead of carbohydrates, a trait typically seen in people suffering from starvation. For reasons not yet completely understood, this starvation mode the body enters has some sort of antiepileptic effect. Jong Rho, a prominent researcher at the University of Calgary, has posited that Keto works because ketone bodies, which are produced en masse by the liver when the body burns fat, act as a protective measure from brain cell damage.

So yes, more research needs to be done. But can't that be said of all cutting edge science? The future of the Keto Diet is one of optimism--check out Charlie Abrahams on youtube to put an inspirational face to the success of this avant-garde methodology.