The 1920s diet which was originally created to control epileptic seizures is having a revival
Having discovered that the Ancient Greeks treated epilepsy with starvation, endocrinologist Dr Geyelin spent ten years trying to discover the chemical change during fasting that reduced seizures. In 1921, Geylein discovered that a strict diet involving a 4:1 ratio of fats to proteins and carbohydrates resulted in a dramatic reduction in systemic inflammation – often the underlying cause of epilepsy.
The strict Ketogenic diet, as it's known, involves eating high amounts of fats such as nuts and cream and avoids white bread, pasta, sugar and grains. For the diet to work for epilepsy sufferers, the regime is normally started in hospital and then followed religiously at home with meals rigorously measured to the nearest gram.
Recent interest in the diet has resulted in a simplified version of the plan now being heralded as the ‘new Atkins’ and a trend for non epilepsy sufferers to take up the high fat regime as a means of weight loss. The theory is that eating large amounts of ‘healthy’ fats reduces the hunger pangs associated with a traditional weight loss diet which in turn sees people eating less calories in total.
Read more at The Guardian