Presenters: Case, S. J., Copley, C. M., Davidson, C. G., Gain, I. C. M., Grant, K. A., Myers, S. S., Parker, G. A., Patel, M. D., Pettit, P. A., Portuondo, M. V., Shi, M. G., Starr, A. P., Towbin, N. L. M., Vick, J. A., Xia, A. L., Aurelia, C., Annarumma, S., Winesett, S. P., Borum, P. R.
Faculty Mentor: S. Parrish Winesett and Peggy R. Borum
College: College of Agricultural and Life Sciences
More than a third of the 65 million people with epilepsy do not respond adequately to medical treatments. We have known for centuries that seizures improve with fasting. A century ago, diets low in carbohydrates were shown to increase circulating ketones (nutritional ketosis) and to reduce seizures.
A precision medicine approach to dietary treatment of refractory epilepsy requires precise quantitation of intake at the level of nutrient composition of macronutrients. The nutrition facts label provides macronutrient data for specific lots of specific brands of food products available to patients. However, these data change as lots change. Since these data are not available as a database, we are creating an updated Nutrition Facts Database (NFD) that will be used to create recipes to administer the diet prescription of patients receiving Precision Ketogenic Therapy (PKT).
Pictures of all aspects of the food label are taken and documented. Data are entered into the NFD and audited. Effort is made to include all the favorite foods of patients to enhance compliance.
NFD will be used in the future to create a Foodomics Database to calculate patient intake of individual amino acids and fatty acids.
Hi!
Is the Nutrition Fact Database accessible to the public? If so, how do I access it?
We are updating our very old website. The new website (going live this summer) will have the updated database publicly available.
Hello!
I was wondering how you were able to come up with your food categories, because creating categories for data is somewhat difficult. There can be a lot of overlaps or conflicts, so I am interested in your process.
As of right now, the Nutrition Facts Database is not available to the public, but a possible goal in the future would be to create a database that can be accessed and used nationally for a variety of purposes. At the moment, our database is only being used to make meals for patients in Precision Ketogenic Therapy.
We were guided by the the USDA food categories (https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/).
I love the use of something closer to the “better poster” format. I am hoping to see more of this in poster sessions in the future.
I am personally very interested in nutrition, so I find this study quite interesting. I am curious to see what specific research proposals based on your collected data will be created! Do you think other dietary restrictions, such as vegetarian or gluten-free, could impact effectiveness of this precision ketogenic therapy?
One of the students in the class is writing a research project to create a plant based PKT with cookbook of recipes. We are about to initiate a patient who is already on a gluten free diet so we are preparing a gluten free PKT.
I was wondering what information might be available about how the cost of food that meets the PKT diet affects the number of individuals who may follow it? I know with cardiovascular diseases, many individuals continue to eat away from the physician recommended diet because they cannot afford it.
The database includes the price of the product as we found it in Florida grocery stores and we calculate the price of each recipe. A student in the class is writing a research proposal addressing your very question.
Hi Justine! When we take photos of the food for the database, we always include the price of the food at full price so that those adhering to the diet know the maximum value they would have to pay, although it would likely be lower with discounts and coupons. We also create meals specifically for the patients through our database, and by doing so, can ensure that the price of the meals and the overall diet will not be so high that price will not hinder someone from being on the diet.
Love the poster format! Clear,easy to follow . And the intro helped me see how important this work is – NIce job!