Low-Carb Diet Can Prevent Seizures, New French Study Finds

Filed under: Study — @ October 24, 2007

I’ll be the first to admit to you that sometimes the medical jargon that accompanies some of these low-carb studies that come out absolutely baffle the heck out of me. Sure, many of them are straightforward enough for me to get the gist of them so I can blog about what you need to know about them.

But sometimes…

One such case of me looking at a study and going “HUH?” is this one out of France entitled “Ketogenic diet and astrocyte/neuron metabolic interactions.” Okay, I know what a ketogenic diet is (one that is low enough in carbohydrates to induce ketosis) and neuron metabolic interactions sounds like something to do with the brain. I didn’t have a clue what an astrocyte was until I looked it up on Wikipedia. Like I said, my knowledge of these things is limited to my own deductive reasoning and simple logic–neither of which helps with terminology I’ve never heard of.

The good news is I have LOTS of friends in high places of learning and experience who are much more adept at understanding the lingo enough to make it palatable to us common folk. So, for this one, I looked no further than the author of The Brain Trust Program himself, neurosurgeon Dr. Larry McCleary, for his assistance with translating what this study means. As expected, Dr. McCleary did not disappoint.

Let me warn you that this can be a bit difficult to follow despite the fact it is written in as simplistic language as possible. But Dr. McCleary even admitted to me that “the chemistry is a bit complicated.” Even still, I think you’ll enjoy reading his wrap-up about this French study from lead researcher Joseph Vamecq1 and his fellow researchers. I’ve included links to Wikipedia for terms you may not be familiar with.

See how Dr. McCleary clearly summarized this difficult-to-understand study about low-carb diets controlling seizures by clicking here.