Anticonvulsant Effect of a Formulated Nigerian-Made Modified Atkins Diet in Mice

Modified Atkins diet has been in use (particularly in developed nations) for a very long time in the management of intractable epilepsy. This research proposed that, a formulated modified Atkins diet using cheap food materials available in Nigeria will also have beneficial effect in seizure management in laboratory animals.
The diet was successfully formulated. However, it failed to protect against seizure in all the acute seizure models employed. The diet however, significantly increased seizure threshold/plasticity in the chronic kindling test. The formulated MAD also enhanced learning memory, and caused an increase in motor coordination. Correlation analysis between seizure scores and levels of some relevant biomarkers revealed that the anti-epileptogenic activity of the diet is not likely to be due to its effect on inflammatory cytokines.

All the data were analyzed using the SPSS software version 23.0. Different statistical tools- Mixed design ANOVA, one way ANOVA, independent t-test, kruskall-Wallis test etc as shown in the legend for each table of raw data - were employed for the data analysis.