Glucose transporter type 1 deficiency syndrome effectively treated with modified Atkins diet

Abstract

This is a report on the successful treatment of a 6-year-old girl with genetically proven glucose transporter type 1 deficiency syndrome (GLUT1-DS) with modified Atkins diet (MAD). GLUT1-DS is an inborn disorder of glucose transport across the blood-brain barrier, which leads to energy deficiency of the brain with a broad spectrum of neurological symptoms including therapy-resistant epilepsy. Usually classical ketogenic diet (KD) is the standard treatment for patients with GLUT1-DS. Treatment with MAD, a variant of KD, for an observation period of 17 months resulted in improvement of seizures, alertness, cognitive abilities, and electroencephalography in this patient.