title: Rationale for using intermittent calorie restriction as a dietary treatment for drug resistant epilepsy.
abstract: There has been resurgence in the use of dietary treatment, principally the classical ketogenic diet and its variants, for people with epilepsy. These diets generally require significant medical and dietician support. An effective but less restrictive dietary regimen is likely to be more acceptable and more widely used. Calorie-restricted diets appear to produce a range of biochemical and metabolic changes including reduced glucose levels, reduced inflammatory markers, increased sirtuins, increased AMPK signaling, inhibition of mTOR signaling, and increase in autophagy. There are studies in animal seizure models that suggest that these biochemical and metabolic changes may decrease ictogenesis and epileptogenesis. A calorie-restricted diet might be effective in reducing seizures in people with epilepsy. Hence, there is a sufficient rationale to undertake clinical trials to assess the efficacy and safety of calorie-restricted diets in people with epilepsy.
authors.affiliation: NIHR University College London Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre, Department of Clinical and Experimental Epilepsy, UCL Institute of Neurology, WC1N 3BG London, UK; Epilepsy Society, Chalfont St Peter, UK. Electronic address: alan@yuen.co.uk.
authors.forename: Alan W C
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Yuen
authors.affiliation: NIHR University College London Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre, Department of Clinical and Experimental Epilepsy, UCL Institute of Neurology, WC1N 3BG London, UK; Epilepsy Society, Chalfont St Peter, UK; SEIN-Epilepsy Institute in The Netherlands Foundation, Achterweg 5, 2103 SW Heemstede, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Josemir W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Sander
mesh_terms: D031204:Caloric Restriction; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000178:diet therapy*; D006801:Humans
keywords: AMPK; Autophagy; Glucose; Intermittent fasting diet; Sirtuins; mTOR