CALGARY- Seven-year-old Denver Bonertz’s favourite foods may sound a bit unusual.
“Pecans and hot dogs,” he announces with a smile.
For the last two years, Denver has followed a specialized high fat diet, often ending each meal with a bowl of full fat whipping cream. The reason? He has epilepsy.
“It wasn’t like a typical seizure, he basically came up from downstairs and I looked over and he was blue and not breathing on the carpet,” his mother Wendy McClelland recalls.
Doctors tried to control Denver’s epilepsy with medication, but the drugs never worked for long.
“He had two or three naps a day because of the meds, especially when he was coming on a dose,” remembers his father Kurt Bonertz.
Today, things are very different. Denver is seizure-free, full of energy and off all medications thanks to the ketogenic diet.
“The ketogenic diet is a high fat, low carbohydrate diet that was originally devised a century ago,” says Dr. Jong Rho, section chief of neurology at Alberta Children’s Hospital.
The diet was first developed jointly at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, New York and Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore in 1921. It was found to be a popular and effective way to treat epilepsy, but with the development of new anti-epileptic medications the diet became a less popular treatment option.
Today, it’s being used more and more when drugs fail.
“Medications while they can control seizures in the majority of patients its estimated that about 30 to 40 per cent of patients with epilepsy cannot be controlled with medications,” says Dr. Rho.
With a typical diet the body burns through glucose from carbohydrates for energy. On a ketogenic diet, the body burns a chemical called ketone bodies produced by the liver. Research has shown the ketone bodies may actually protect brain cells from damage during disease states.
Dr. Rho says the diet’s therapeutic potential may be larger than epilepsy.
“The components of the ketogenic diet may be effective for patients with alzheimers,” he explains. “There is interesting literature on brain cancer being a positive responder to the diet and we’ve done work here looking at autism as well.”
Researchers aren’t sure why the diet is so effective but for one in three patients where medications fail, the diet appears to work.
Denver hasn’t had a single seizure since beginning the ketogenic diet. His parents aren’t sure how long he will have to eat this way, but for now they’re just thankful to have their little boy back.
“He’s a happy, normal active kid,” says Wendy with a smile. “We’re so fortunate”
Denver’s father is planning to run an ultra marathon to raise money for a support group. For more information visit his blog: kbonertz.wordpress.com
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