From the Web: The ketogenic diet: high fat, high hopes

Cure for epilepsy? Radical weight-loss programme? This increasingly popular regimen could have many benefits

In 1921, an endocrinologist named Dr Henry Rawle Geyelin arrived at the annual meeting of the American Medical Association to deliver a talk on therapeutic fasting in the treatment of epileptic seizures. Ninety years later, Geyelin would probably be surprised to find that the same diet is being heralded as the latest magic weight-loss programme.
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The ketogenic diet has been called the “new Atkins” and is being taken up by an increasing number of people. But Professor Thomas Seyfried from Boston College, who has conducted research on the regimen, urges caution. “This diet is not to be taken lightly and there are healthcare professionals who work specifically in administering it,” he says. “Done incorrectly, you can alter your blood lipid parameters, which is not healthy. But when done the correct way, the blood parameters for the heart look beautiful.”
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