A high-fat, low-carbohydrate treatment that dates back to Biblical times is making a comeback for children with epilepsy.

The ketogenic diet is 90 per cent fat and 10 per cent carbohydrates and protein.

Among people with intractable epilepsy, where nothing helps, about one-third no longer have seizures or need to take medication after going on the diet, said dietician Nancy Moore.

Another one-third have fewer seizures and can reduce their medication, leading to better quality of life. Epilepsy remains intractable in the remaining one-third of people, she said.

Epilepsy is a neurological disorder that affects about one per cent of the Canadian population. In some cases, the seizures can be controlled by medication but other times surgery is needed.

No one knows how the diet stops seizures in some children. In Biblical times, some people with epilepsy reported their seizures stopped after fasting, during sickness for example.

Fast for brain

One theory is the ketogenic diet approximates a fasting state in the body.

"You don't give the body a lot of glucose and we then start functioning off fat," said Moore. "When we burn fat and there's no carbohydrates in our body, the byproduct are ketones, and the human brain is able to live off of ketones."

The diet can be useful, but it requires dedication from both the family and the hospital, said Dr. Bernard Rosenblatt, chief of neurology at Montreal Children's Hospital. Rosenblatt led a session on epilepsy for parents attending the International Congress of Child Neurology in Montreal on Wednesday evening.

He said physicians and dieticians need to follow a child closely because the diet carries risks.

The complications tend to be minor, but there have been a couple of deaths when parents tried to administer the diet themselves, Moore cautioned.

Tammy Sheppard's son, Kyle, started having seizures when he was nine months old and eventually had up to one seizure per minute.

Kyle, now 11, is free of epileptic seizures and doesn't need to take medication. The ketogenic diet was the answer for Kyle, his mother said. She serves him a lot of butter, mayonnaise and his favourite, whipping cream.

"I feel strongly about the ketogenic diet," said Sheppard, who is attending the congress in Montreal this week to spread the word to other parents about the diet. "It really helped out my son. I know it can help out other families."