By Eric Kossoff MD
The 14th Biannual International Child Neurology Congress was recently held in early May in the beautiful city of Amsterdam. Although traditionally there has not been much in the way of ketogenic diet content at this meeting (compared to American Epilepsy Society meetings for example), this year was an exception. On the Tuesday of the meeting, I presented a 30 minute overview of “What’s New?” with the ketogenic diet for the larger grouped audience as part of a session on epilepsy. I discussed the current state-of-the-art, namely that the KD has now sufficient demonstrated evidence for efficacy to “end” debate, indications are relatively established, and that side effects are being prevented not just identified. Then, I focused on controversies, including the true benefit for adults with epilepsy, use of alternative diets and creative initiation protocols, and whether ketogenic diet “pills” are truly substitutes or just supplements. Finally, I predicted future developments would also include non-epilepsy uses (cancer), novel genetic indications, and expansion of dietary therapies to developing countries around the world.
On Wednesday, an interesting poster was presented by Dr. Antonina Gavajuc from Moldova about her experience in starting a ketogenic diet center in a resource-limited situation.
This was followed by a 90 minute lunch symposium about this very issue. Ms. Kath Megaw from South Africa, Dr. Janak Nathan from India, and lastly Ms. Emma Williams from UK all lectured about their experiences in helping expand the diet throughout the world, in terms of online courses, workshops, direct patient care in rural settings, and setting up parent-led support groups.