title: Does a preference for fatty foods prior to commencing treatment with the ketogenic diet predict the efficacy of this diet?
abstract: The ketogenic diet can be effective in children who suffer from drug-resistant epilepsy. However, it is still hard to predict how large an effect this diet will have for an individual child. Previous data suggests a high-fat food preference is more likely in those with epilepsy, as assessed by in-person forced-choice design. The aim of this study is to examine whether a partiality to fatty foods prior to commencing the ketogenic diet can be used as a predictive factor for the efficacy of this diet in children with drug-resistant epilepsy. Data from 43 children aged between 2 and 19 years was used in this retrospective, non-controlled, non-randomised, open study. All children had followed the ketogenic diet for a period of 3 months or more. Before commencing the diet, a food record was collected for each child to determine the percentage of daily energy-intake accounted for by fats. Parents of the participants completed a questionnaire to measure fat-preference in the pre-diet period and received a score to objectify the efficacy of the treatment. The raw scores on the food record and on the questionnaire were divided into subgroups. Subsequently Kendall's tau-b was calculated for the correlation between each combination of variables. A non-significant correlation was found for the relationship between the food record and the questionnaire (p=.939), the relationship between the food record and the efficacy of the treatment (p=.827) and the relationship between the questionnaire and the efficacy of the treatment (p=.539). This means treatment efficacy cannot be predicted by the child's food preference.
authors.affiliation: University Medical Centre Utrecht, Heidelberglaan 100, 3584 CX Utrecht, The Netherlands. C.F.Dekker@students.uu.nl
authors.forename: C F
authors.initials: CF
authors.lastname: Dekker
authors.forename: T A M
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: van den Hurk
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: van Nieuwenhuizen
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D055423:Diet, Ketogenic; D004041:Dietary Fats; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000178:diet therapy*; D005518:Food Preferences / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D004041:Dietary Fats