Low saturated fat diet is effective in trigeminal neuralgia

A selection of abstracts of clinically relevant papers from other journals. The abstracts on this page have been chosen and edited by John R. Radford.

Abstract

One of the investigators (FS) was motivated to examine a low fat saturated diet (LFSD), because a friend with severe trigeminal neuralgia avoided micro-vascular decompression using such an approach.

Main

Verma N, Sherwood F. Open J Prev Med 2013; 3: 402–406

It is reported that there is nothing new in treating neurological illnesses with diet. In this study, 55 patients were recruited with trigeminal neuralgia with almost one third having received surgical intervention. The low fat saturated diet, as used in this study, would not impose the strict restrictions entailed by, for example, the Ornish diet or the Esselstyn diet. Almost all those with typical trigeminal neuralgia and 71% with atypical trigeminal neuralgia 'improved from severe pain level to minimal' within one month of using the LFSD. In addition, 72% of patients on medications reduced or discontinued their use and remarkably there were favourable outcomes for those who gained no improvement following surgery. The investigators concede 'biological improbability' but recover their position by stating that 'many novel therapies are initially serendipitous, and appear dramatic and improbable.' The only side effect was weight loss!