Most people associate keto with weight loss, but the diet was originally developed in the 1920s as a medical treatment for epilepsy — and it remains a clinically supported therapy today.
In 1921, Dr Russell Wilder at the Mayo Clinic formalised the ketogenic diet as a treatment for epilepsy. He observed that fasting reduced seizures and hypothesised that a high-fat, low-carb diet could mimic fasting’s effects while allowing normal nutrition.
The precise mechanism is still not fully understood, but ketones appear to stabilise neuronal membrane potentials, reduce glutamate (excitatory) activity, and increase GABA (inhibitory) activity in the brain.
Approximately 50% of children with drug-resistant epilepsy achieve a 50%+ reduction in seizure frequency on the ketogenic diet. Around 10–15% become seizure-free.
Therapeutic ketogenic diets for epilepsy are stricter than standard keto (often 4:1 fat-to-protein+carb ratio) and must be managed by a ketogenic diet team at a specialist centre.
Our gluten-free keto recipes and keto main dishes focus on the whole-food, nutrient-dense approach that supports therapeutic keto.