Researcher and dietitian Dr Neha Kaul's clinical practice and research focuses on ketogenic diet therapy for epilepsy and headache disorders. Around one third of people diagnosed with epilepsy are resistant to drug treatments. Over the past 30 years there have been significant development in new anti-seizure medications, however the proportion of people with drug-resistant epilepsy remains unchanged, and this is where the ketogenic diet (a high-fat, low-carb diet) can play a part in treatment, where it's been used for more than century.

About half the people that try the ketogenic diet for epilepsy, see their seizures reduce by half, one-third of people have over 90% reduction and 10-15% become seizure-free. There may be other benefits, such as reduction in severity of seizures, reduction in medications, improvement in cardio-vascular disease risk factors and improvement in mood and overall feeling of wellbeing.

Dr Neha Kaul is a Senior Dietitian at the Alfred Hospital and Research Fellow at the Department of Neuroscience at Monash University. She joins Dr Shane and team to share her research and expertise.