title: The ketogenic and atkins diets effect on intractable epilepsy: a comparison.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Intractable epilepsy is a major difficulty in child neurology, because the numbers of drugs that are available for treatment are limited and new treatments such as diets must be tried. Now there are some diets available for treating patients with intractable epilepsy. The oldest diet is the classic ketogenic diet and one of the newest diets is the modified Atkins diet. Patients have a harder time accepting the classic ketogenic diet than the Atkins diet, which is easier to accept because the food tastes better. This study compares the efficacy of the ketogenic diet and the Atkins diet for intractable epilepsy in children.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study is a clinical trial survey with sample size of 40 children with refractory epilepsy who were patients at Mofid hospital in Tehran, Iran. Initially, from Jan 2005-Oct 2007, 20 children were treated with the Atkins diet, and then from Oct 2007-March 2010, the other group was treated with the classic ketogenic diet and the results were compared.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In this study, response to treatment was greater than a 50% reduction in seizures and at the end of first, second, and third months for the ketogenic diet were 55%, 30%, and 70% and for the Atkins diet were 50%, 65%, and 70%, respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results of this study show that there is no significant difference between the classic Ketogenic diet and the Atkins diet at the end of first, second, and third months and both had similar responses to the treatments.
authors.affiliation: Neurophysiology Research Center, Department of Pediatric Neurology, Urmia University of Medical Sciences, Urmia, Iran.
authors.forename: Ahad
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ghazavi
authors.affiliation: Pediatric Neurology Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran ; Pediatric Neurology Center of Excellence, Department of Pediatric Neurology, Mofid Children Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Seyed Hassan
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Tonekaboni
authors.affiliation: Pediatric Neurology Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran ; Pediatric Neurology Center of Excellence, Department of Pediatric Neurology, Mofid Children Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Parvaneh
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Karimzadeh
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Nephrology, Urmia University of Medical Sciences, Urmia, Iran.
authors.forename: Ahmad Ali
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Nikibakhsh
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Neurology, Zahedan University of Medical Sciences, Zahedan, Iran.
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Khajeh
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Neurology, Hamedan University of Medical Sciences, Hamedan, Iran.
authors.forename: Afshin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fayyazi
keywords: Atkins diet; Classic ketogenic diet; Intractable epilepsy