Some try ultra-fat diet to combat medical conditions

[JPace]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-05-14-diet-treatment_x.htm
By Ben Harder, Special for USA TODAY

Some try ultra-fat diet to combat medical conditions
For a month that tested her determination, Marilyn Deaton dined on little but fat. The recipes she prepared included eggs baked with gobs of cream cheese, small portions of fish outweighed by butter, oil and mayo, and ground beef mixed with so much heavy cream that it ran a light brown.
"I can't stand things that are soft and slimy," says Deaton, 60, of New York. She missed "crunchable stuff," such as carrots, she says.

Deaton has Parkinson's disease. The disagreeable diet was an experimental treatment prescribed by her doctors. Four other Parkinson's patients followed the same menu.

The results, which included modest improvements in balance, tremors and mood, were encouraging but too preliminary to prove an effect, says Theodore VanItallie of St. Luke's-Roosevelt Medical Hospital Center in New York. VanItallie and his colleagues published their findings last year in the journal Neurology.

Their trial and other recent studies hint that a diet nearly devoid of protein and carbohydrates might temper symptoms of several neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's and Lou Gehrig's disease, VanItallie says.
more..........http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-05-14-diet-treatment_x.htm

[Sanity Claws]

1. Epilepsy diet

I don't remember all the details but there is a diet that can cure epilepsy. It is also very heavy on fats.

[trotsky]

2. Be careful with your claims.

There is nothing (as of yet) that can cure epilepsy.

From http://www.epilepsyfoundation.org/answerplace/Medical/treatment/medications/remission.cfm...

A cure for epilepsy has not yet been achieved.

[Sanity Claws]

4. Actually there was television coverage regarding this diet

about 5 years ago. Some young people who were started on this diet and stayed on it for a few years did not have any recurrence of epileptic attacks. The Epilepsy Foundation website said strict adherence to the diet results in one of three not having any more seizures. http://www.epilepsyfoundation.org/answerplace/Medical/treatment/diet/
That sounds like a cure.

[trotsky]

6. 1 in 3 is not a cure.

It is, as the Epilepsy Foundation notes, a treatment. Again I repeat, please be careful with your choice of words.

[Warpy]

3. The early diabetic diet was about as nasty

High fat and moderate protein and not a scrap of starch to be found. People did live a little longer on it, but not by much. We had to wait for insulin and learn how to use it to control the disease before we saw much improvement.

The same will be true for Parkinson's and ALS, along with other neurodegenerative diseases.

[Celebration]

5. the ketogenic diet

http://www.epilepsy.org.uk/info/ketogenic.html

The goal here is to produce ketones (epilepsy diet). It really helps some kids, apparently. Is it the same mechanism here?