Two important studies on epilepsy- Fasting Benefit and, a link between Epilepsy and Migraine
This is my first blog after my Xmas holidays. I hope all my readers also have a good break.
I hope both research studies will help lot of people who suffers from Epilepsy.
What is Epilepsy?
Epilepsy refers to a chronic condition in which repeated fits or attacks of unconsciousness occur with or without convulsions. It is a serious disorder of the central nervous system caused by abnormal electrical activity of the brain. It occurs in both children and adults. Most attacks, however, occur in childhood and in early adult life. Attack rates show a progressive decline in frequency with age.
First study- Fasting May Benefit Patients with Epilepsy
What is fasting?
Fasting involves eating no food and drinking only water or juice for a period of one to five days or longer.
Children with persistent and drug-resistant seizures treated with the high-fat, low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet may get an added benefit from periodic fasting, according to a small Johns Hopkins Children's Center study. The results, published online Dec. 3 in the journal Epilepsy Research, suggest the ketogenic diet and fasting can work in tandem to reduce seizures but appear do so through different mechanisms - a finding that challenges the longstanding assumption that the two share a common mechanism. "Our findings suggest that fasting does not merely intensify the therapeutic effects of the ketogenic diet but may actually represent an entirely new way to change the metabolism of children with epilepsy," says lead investigator Adam Hartman, M.D., a pediatric neurologist at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center. In the study, six children, ages 2 to 7, and all on the ketogenic diet, were asked to fast on alternate days. All six children had seizure disorders incompletely resolved by the diet alone. Four of the six children experienced between 50 percent and 99 percent fewer seizures after the fasts were added to the dietary regimen. Three of the six were able to continue the fasting regimen for two months or longer. The Johns Hopkins investigators say while the results are preliminary, they do provide compelling evidence of the potential benefits of fasting. Periodic fasts, they add, may eventually prove to be an alternative standalone therapy in children with drug-resistant epilepsy.
The researchers caution that larger studies are needed to further elucidate the effects of fasting. They also warn that fasting should be done under the strict supervision of a pediatric neurologist. Made up of high-fat foods and few carbohydrates, the ketogenic diet is believed to work by triggering biochemical changes that eliminate seizure-causing short circuits in the brain's signaling system. The diet, popularized in the early 1900s, was designed to mimic the physiologic effects of fasting - a seizure-control method favored by ancient Greeks. Since then, physicians have believed that the two therapies share a common mechanism. The new Johns Hopkins findings, however, suggest otherwise. "We suspect that fasting affects nerve cells in a completely different manner from the ketogenic diet," Hartman says. This hypothesis stemmed from a 2010 study of mice conducted by the Johns Hopkins team.
Two groups of epileptic mice - one treated with the ketogenic diet and one treated with fasting - had strikingly different responses to different seizure triggers. Animals treated with the ketogenic diet experienced fewer seizures than fasting mice when exposed to low amounts of electricity, but fared worse when they were injected with kainic acid, a potent nervous system stimulant and a known seizure trigger. Fasting mice, on the other hand, did worse when exposed to electricity but tolerated kainic acid injections far better than their ketogenic diet counterparts. In other words, the researchers say, each therapy protected against one seizure trigger, while increasing sensitivity to the other. "We don't fully understand the reasons for these marked differences, but unraveling the mechanisms behind them will help pave the way toward new therapies for epilepsy, and is the focus of our ongoing work," says Eric Kossoff, M.D., pediatric neurologist and director of the ketogenic diet clinic at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center.
(Source- Johns Hopkins Children's Center)
Dec 12, 2012
This is my 11th blog on Epilepsy. You can some them here to get more information about new research on medicine and other areas. As we all know that Epilepsy is a neurological condition, which affects the nervous system.
Nov 30, 2012
Epilepsy is a neurological condition, which affects the nervous system. Epilepsy is also known as a seizure disorder. It is usually diagnosed after a person has had at least two seizures that were not caused by some known ...
Nov 14, 2012
How a New Medicine offer Lot of promise for Epilepsy. ... Glutamate is a primary neurotransmitter involved in excitation in the central nervous system and is implicated in a number of conditions, particularly epilepsy. Although ...
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Second Study- Epilepsy and Migraine Genetic Link
This study will help us in finding how Migraine in parents linked to their kids.New research reveals a shared genetic susceptibility to epilepsy and migraine. Findings published in Epilepsia, a journal of the International League against Epilepsy (ILAE), indicate that having a strong family history of seizure disorders increases the chance of having migraine with aura (MA).
Medical evidence has established that migraine and epilepsy often co-occur in patients; this co-occurrence is called "comorbidity." Previous studies have found that people with epilepsy are substantially more likely than the general population to have migraine headache. However, it is not clear whether that comorbidity results from a shared genetic cause. "Epilepsy and migraine are each individually influenced by genetic factors," explains lead author Dr. Melodie Winawer from Columbia University Medical Center in New York. "Our study is the first to confirm a shared genetic susceptibility to epilepsy and migraine in a large population of patients with common forms of epilepsy."
For the present study, Dr. Winawer and colleagues analyzed data collected from participants in the Epilepsy Phenome/Genome Project (EPGP) - a genetic study of epilepsy patients and families from 27 clinical centers in the U.S., Canada, Argentina, Australia, and New Zealand. The study examined one aspect of EPGP: sibling and parent-child pairs with focal epilepsy or generalized epilepsy of unknown cause. Most people with epilepsy have no family members affected with epilepsy. EPGP was designed to look at those rare families with more than one individual with epilepsy, in order to increase the chance of finding genetic causes of epilepsy.
Analysis of 730 participants with epilepsy from 501 families demonstrated that the prevalence of MA - when additional symptoms, such as blind spots or flashing lights, occur prior to the headache pain - was substantially increased when there were several individuals in the family with seizure disorders. EPGP study participants with epilepsy who had three or more additional close relatives with a seizure disorder were more than twice as likely to experience MA than patients from families with fewer individuals with seizures. In other words, the stronger the genetic effect on epilepsy in the family, the higher the rates of MA. This result provides evidence that a gene or genes exist that cause both epilepsy and migraine.
Identification of genetic contributions to the comorbidity of epilepsy with other disorders, like migraine, has implications for epilepsy patients. Prior research has shown that coexisting conditions impact the quality of life, treatment success, and mortality of epilepsy patients, with some experts suggesting that these comorbidities may have a greater impact on patients than the seizures themselves. In fact, comorbid conditions are emphasized in the National Institutes of Health Epilepsy Research Benchmarks and in a recent report on epilepsy from the Institute of Medicine. "Our study demonstrates a strong genetic basis for migraine and epilepsy, because the rate of migraine is increased only in people who have close (rather than distant) relatives with epilepsy and only when three or more family members are affected," concludes Dr. Winawer. "Further investigation of the genetics of groups of comorbid disorders and epilepsy will help to improve the diagnosis and treatment of these comorbidities, and enhance the quality of life for those with epilepsy."
(Source- Epilepsia)
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