Letters

<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   HAVE YOUR SAY Feel strongly about something? Share it with the community by writing a letter to the editor. You’ll need to include your name, address and daytime phone number. (We’ll only publish your name and hometown.) We reserve the right to edit letters, but if you keep yours to 250 words or less, we won’t ask you to shorten it. If your letter is published, please wait 30 days before submitting another. Send it to: E-mail: letters@heraldnet.com Mail: Letters section The Herald P.O. Box 930 Everett, WA 98206 Fax: 425-339-3458 Have a question about letters? Contact Carol MacPherson (cmacpherson@heraldnet.com or 425-339-3472).   Published: Sunday, November 15, 2009 EPILEPSY TREATMENT Good to highlight dietary changes On Nov. 7, The Herald published a very interesting article that appeared on page B5, headlined “Boy’s seizures end without drugs, thanks to new diet.” In fact, the ketogenic diet is not new at all, but has a medical history almost 100 years old. (Even older, for example, 400 B.C., if you want to look into the Hippocratic Corpus for the use of dietary changes in epilepsy treatments.) There is considerable information now available about the ketogenic diet on the Internet, e.g.; “Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia,” search for ketogenic diet — history. In the mid-1990s, Hollywood producer Jim Abrahams, whose son’s severe epilepsy was effectively controlled by the diet, created the Charlie Foundation to promote it. Publicity included an appearance on NBC’s “Dateline” program and “First Do No Harm” (1997), a made-for-television film starring Meryl Streep. The foundation sponsored a multi-center research study, the results of which — published in 1996 — marked the beginning of renewed scientific interest in the diet. The Wenatchee World’s article about the Malstead family parallels the story in the 1997 TV film. With a medical system that revolves around high-priced medications and surgical intervention as a primary solution to illnesses, dietary changes are frowned on by most MDs. (No money there?) The above article suggests that the diet is difficult to maintain (it’s bland, tasteless, looks funny, lots of fat, etc.); but many of our illnesses required a modicum of diet modification to be succesful in treating the disease. It seems that young Saywer Malstead successfully did it; from 30 grand mal seizures per day to zero by eating almost the classic definition of a “fast-food diet.” We congratulate the Malstead family for going outside the box to help their son, Sawyer. God bless each of you. Frank Thornton Langley

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