* The Epilepsy Diet Made Simple- Out of necessity, this is the same introductory paper I have on the G.A.R.D. section of this Website. It is a summary style piece that explains the logic behind the diet I have developed to help manage epilepsy. It is filled with "med-speak", however, and may be a bit more difficult for the layperson to understand than the following papers. I wrote this article in response to a request by doctors who were asking for a more concise, medically-oriented explanation of the diet to offer to their epileptic and pain suffering patients. It is about 5 pages long when printed out....a step in the right direction, anyway. I decided to lead this section with this paper even though it jumps right into topics that the rest of this section builds up to. Consider it an outline for what you will find in much greater detail in the papers and addendums that follow.

*Now for the GOOD News- On these dietary restrictions, I just want to make one thing very clear. We are restricting the level of glutamate and aspartate in the diet because the neurons of the brain (and their associated supportive cells called glial cells, or astrocytes) are diseased and cannot handle the high levels of this non-essential, neurostimulating amino acid in our typical diet. The good news (yes, there is some good news) is that once we are off the “big 4” long enough, the process does reverse and we can go back to eating some of the foods on the glutamate-rich list.