Abstract
The ketogenic diet (KD) is a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet with an established efficacy
for treating medically refractory epilepsy in children. Fatty acids are the most important
constituent of the KD in all aspects of efficacy and complications. Among fatty acids,
polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) increase anticonvulsant properties and reduce
the complications associated with the high-fat diet. Here, we report a 7-year-old
boy with Lennox–Gastaut syndrome combined with mitochondrial respiratory chain complex
I deficiency, whose medically intractable seizures have been successfully controlled
with a PUFA-enriched modified Atkins diet without any significant adverse events.
The diet consists of canola oil and diverse menu items like fish and nuts instead
of olive oil and has an ideal 1:2.8 ratio of omega-3 to omega-6. In addition, fractionation
of this boy’s plasma showed normal levels of fatty acids, including omega-3 (alpha-linoleic
acid, eicosapentaenoic acid) and omega-6 (linoleic acid, arachidonic acid) as well
as monounsaturated fatty acids (oleic acid). Plasma docosahexanoic acid remained low
after PUFA-enriched diet therapy. PUFA-enriched diet therapy is likely to increase
the efficacy of diet therapy and reduce complications of a high-fat diet in children
with refractory epilepsy.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: March 06, 2013
Accepted:
January 27,
2013
Received in revised form:
January 20,
2013
Received:
October 18,
2012
Identification
Copyright
© 2013 The Japanese Society of Child Neurology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
