Symptoms are the patient’s complaints. They are highly subjective and amenable to suggestion and to alterations in the patient’s mood and other mental processes. Symptoms are no more than mere indications. Signs, on the other hand, are objective and measurable. Signs are evidence of the existence, stage, and extent of a pathological state. Headache is a symptom – short-sightedness (which may well be the cause of the headache) is a sign.

Here is a partial list of the most important signs and symptoms in alphabetical order:

Affect

We all experience emotions, but each and every one of us expresses them differently. Affect is HOW we express our innermost feelings and how other people observe and interpret our expressions. Affect is characterized by the type of emotion involved (sadness, happiness, anger, etc.) and by the intensity of its expression. Some people have flat affect: they maintain “poker faces”, monotonous, immobile, apparently unmoved. This is typical of the Schizoid Personality Disorder Others have blunted, constricted, or broad (healthy) affect. Patients with the dramatic (Cluster B) personality disorders – especially the Histrionic and the Borderline – have exaggerate and labile (changeable) affect. They are “drama queens”.

In certain mental health disorders, the affect is inappropriate. For instance: such people laugh when they recount a sad or horrifying event or when they find themselves is morbid settings (e.g., in a funeral). Also see: Mood.

Read about inappropriate affect in narcissists

Ambivalence

We have all come across situations and dilemmas which evoked equipotent – but opposing and conflicting – emotions or ideas. Now, imagine someone with a permanent state of inner turmoil: her emotions come in mutually exclusive pairs, her thoughts and conclusions arrayed in contradictory dyads. The result is, of course, extreme indecision, to the point of utter paralysis and inaction. Sufferers of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders and the Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder are highly ambivalent.

Anhedonia

When we lose the urge to seek pleasure and to prefer it to nothingness or even pain, we become anhedonic. Depression inevitably involves anhedonia. the depressed are unable to conjure sufficient mental energy to get off the couch and do something because they find everything equally boring and unattractive.

Anorexia

Diminished appetite to the point of refraining from eating. Whether it is part of a depressive illness or a body dysmorphic disorder (erroneous perception of one’s body as too fat) is still debated. Anorexia is one of a family of eating disorders which also includes bulimia (compulsive gorging on food and then its forced purging, usually by vomiting).

Learn more about comorbidity of eating disorders and personality disorders

Anxiety

A kind of unpleasant (dysphoric), mild fear, with no apparent external reason. Anxiety is akin to dread, or apprehension, or fearful anticipation of some imminent but diffuse and unspecified danger. The mental state of anxiety (and the concomitant hypervigilance) has physiological complements: tensed muscle tone, elevated blood pressure, tachycardia, and sweating (arousal).

Generalized Anxiety Disorder is sometimes misdiagnosed as a personality disorder

Autism

More precisely: autistic thinking and inter-relating (relating to other people). Fantasy-infused thoughts. The patient’s cognitions derive from an overarching and all-pervasive fantasy life. Moreover, the patient infuses people and events around him or her with fantastic and completely subjective meanings. The patient regards the external world as an extension or projection of the internal one. He, thus, often withdraws completely and retreats into his inner, private realm, unavailable to communicate and interact with others.

Asperger’s Disorder, one of the spectrum of autistic disorders, is sometimes misdiagnosed as Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)

Automatic obeisance or obedience

Automatic, unquestioning, and immediate obeisance of all commands, even the most manifestly absurd and dangerous ones. This suspension of critical judgment is sometimes an indication of incipient catatonia.

Blocking

Halted, frequently interrupted speech to the point of incoherence indicates a parallel disruption of thought processes. The patient appears to try hard to remember what it was that he or she were saying or thinking (as if they “lost the thread” of conversation).

Catalepsy

“Human sculptures” are patients who freeze in any posture and position that they are placed, no matter how painful and unusual. Typical of catatonics.

Catatonia

A syndrome comprised of various signs, amongst which are: catalepsy, mutism, stereotypy, negativism, stupor, automatic obedience, echolalia, and echopraxia. Until recently it was thought to be related to schizophrenia, but this view has been discredited when the biochemical basis for schizophrenia had been discovered. The current thinking is that catatonia is an exaggerated form of mania (in other words: an affective disorder). It is a feature of catatonic schizophrenia, though, and also appears in certain psychotic states and mental disorders that have organic (medical) roots.

Cerea Flexibilitas

Literally: wax-like flexibility. In the common form of catalepsy, the patient offers no resistance to the re-arrangement of his limbs or to the re-alignment of her posture. In Cerea Flexibilitas, there is some resistance, though it is very mild, much like the resistance a sculpture made of soft wax would offer.

Circumstantiality

When the train of thought and speech is often derailed by unrelated digressions, based on chaotic associations. The patient finally succeeds to express his or her main idea but only after much effort and wandering. In extreme cases considered to be a communication disorder.

Clang Associations

Rhyming or punning associations of words with no logical connection or any discernible relationship between them. Typical of manic episodes, psychotic states, and schizophrenia.

Clouding

(Also: Clouding of Consciousness)

The patient is wide awake but his or her awareness of the environment is partial, distorted, or impaired. Clouding also occurs when one gradually loses consciousness (for instance, as a result of intense pain or lack of oxygen).

Compulsion

Involuntary repetition of a stereotyped and ritualistic action or movement, usually in connection with a wish or a fear. The patient is aware of the irrationality of the compulsive act (in other words: she knows that there is no real connection between her fears and wishes and what she is repeatedly compelled to do). Most compulsive patients find their compulsions tedious, bothersome, distressing, and unpleasant – but resisting the urge results in mounting anxiety from which only the compulsive act provides much needed relief. Compulsions are common in obsessive-compulsive disorders, the Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD), and in certain types of schizophrenia.

Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD)

Read about the compulsive acts of the narcissist

Concrete Thinking

Inability or diminished capacity to form abstractions or to think using abstract categories. The patient is unable to consider and formulate hypotheses or to grasp and apply metaphors. Only one layer of meaning is attributed to each word or phrase and figures of speech are taken literally. Consequently, nuances are not detected or appreciated. A common feature of schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorders, and certain organic disorders.

Read about narcissism and Asperger’s Disorder

Confabulation

The constant and unnecessary fabrication of information or events to fill in gaps in the patient’s memory, biography or knowledge, or to substitute for unacceptable reality. Common in the Cluster B personality disorders (narcissistic, histrionic, borderline, and antisocial) and in organic memory impairment or the amnestic syndrome (amnesia).

Read about the Narcissist’s Confabulated Life

Confusion

Complete (though often momentary) loss of orientation in relation to one’s location, time, and to other people. Usually the result of impaired memory (often occurs in dementia) or attention deficit (for instance, in delirium). Also see: Disorientation.

Delirium

Delirium is a syndrome which involves clouding, confusion, restlessness, psychomotor disorders (retardation or, on the opposite pole, agitation), and mood and affective disturbances (lability). Delirium is not a constant state. It waxes and wanes and its onset is sudden, usually the result of some organic affliction of the brain.

Delusion

A belief, idea, or conviction firmly held despite abundant information to the contrary. The partial or complete loss of reality test is the first indication of a psychotic state or episode. Beliefs, ideas, or convictions shared by other people, members of the same collective, are not, strictly speaking, delusions, although they may be hallmarks of shared psychosis. There are many types of delusions:

I. Paranoid

The belief that one is being controlled or persecuted by stealth powers and conspiracies.

2. Grandiose-magical

The conviction that one is important, omnipotent, possessed of occult powers, or a historic figure.

3. Referential (ideas of reference)

The belief that external, objective events carry hidden or coded messages or that one is the subject of discussion, derision, or opprobrium, even by total strangers.

The Delusional Way Out

Psychosis and Delusions

Ideas of Reference

Dementia

Simultaneous impairment of various mental faculties, especially the intellect, memory, judgment, abstract thinking, and impulse control due to brain damage, usually as an outcome of organic illness. Dementia ultimately leads to the transformation of the patient’s whole personality. Dementia does not involve clouding and can have acute or slow (insidious) onset. Some dementia states are reversible.

Depersonalization

Feeling that one’s body has changed shape or that specific organs have become elastic and are not under one’s control. Usually coupled with “out of body” experiences. Common in a variety of mental health and physiological disorders: depression, anxiety, epilepsy, schizophrenia, and hypnagogic states. Often observed in adolescents. See: Derealization.

Derailment

A loosening of associations. A pattern of speech in which unrelated or loosely-related ideas are expressed hurriedly and forcefully, with frequent topical shifts and with no apparent internal logic or reason. See: Incoherence.

Derealization

Feeling that one’s immediate environment is unreal, dream-like, or somehow altered. See: Depersonalization.

Warped Reality

Dereistic Thinking

Inability to incorporate reality-based facts and logical inference into one’s thinking. Fantasy-based thoughts.

Disorientation

Not knowing what year, month, or day it is or not knowing one’s location (country, state, city, street, or building one is in). Also: not knowing who one is, one’s identity. One of the signs of delirium.

Echolalia

Imitation by way of exactly repeating another person’s speech. Involuntary, semiautomatic, uncontrollable, and repeated imitation of the speech of others. Observed in organic mental disorders, pervasive developmental disorders, psychosis, and catatonia. See: Echopraxia.

Echopraxia

Imitation by way or exactly repeating another person’s movements. Involuntary, semiautomatic, uncontrollable, and repeated imitation of the movements of others. Observed in organic mental disorders, pervasive developmental disorders, psychosis, and catatonia. See: Echolalia.

Flight of Ideas

Rapidly verbalized train of unrelated thoughts or of thoughts related only via relatively-coherent associations. Still, in its extreme forms, flight of ideas involves cognitive incoherence and disorganization. Appears as a sign of mania, certain organic mental health disorders, schizophrenia, and psychotic states. Also see: Pressure of Speech and Loosening of Associations.

More about the manic phase of the Bipolar disorder

Folie a Deux (Madness in Twosome, Shared Psychosis)

The sharing of delusional (often persecutory) ideas and beliefs by two or more (folie a plusieurs) persons who cohabitate or form a social unit (e.g., a family, a cult, or an organization). One of the members in each of these groups is dominant and is the source of the delusional content and the instigator of the idiosyncratic behaviors that accompany the delusions.

Read more about Shared Psychosis and cults – click on these links:

http://samvak.tripod.com/journal79.html

http://samvak.tripod.com/abusefamily.html

http://malignantselflove.tripod.com/faq6.html

http://malignantselflove.tripod.com/faq66.html

Fugue

Vanishing act. A sudden flight or wandering away and disappearance from home or work, followed by the assumption of a new identity and the commencement of a new life in a new place. The previous life is completely erased from memory (amnesia). When the fugue is over, it is also forgotten as is the new life adopted by the patient.

Hallucination

False perceptions based on false sensa (sensory input) not triggered by any external event or entity. The patient is usually not psychotic – he is aware that he what he sees, smells, feels, or hears is not there. Still, some psychotic states are accompanied by hallucinations (e.g., formication – the feeling that bugs are crawling over or under one’s skin).

There are a few classes of hallucinations:

Auditory – The false perception of voices and sounds (such as buzzing, humming, radio transmissions, whispering, motor noises, and so on).

Gustatory – The false perception of tastes

Olfactory – The false perception of smells and scents (e.g., burning flesh, candles)

Somatic – The false perception of processes and events that are happening inside the body or to the body (e.g., piercing objects, electricity running through one’s extremities). Usually supported by an appropriate and relevant delusional content.

Tactile – The false sensation of being touched, or crawled upon or that events and processes are taking place under one’s skin. Usually supported by an appropriate and relevant delusional content.

Visual – The false perception of objects, people, or events in broad daylight or in an illuminated environment with eyes wide open.

Hypnagogic and Hypnopompic – Images and trains of events experienced while falling asleep or when waking up. Not hallucinations in the strict sense of the word.

Hallucinations are common in schizophrenia, affective disorders, and mental health disorders with organic origins. Hallucinations are also common in drug and alcohol withdrawal and among substance abusers.

Ideas of Reference

Weak delusions of reference, devoid of inner conviction and with a stronger reality test. See: Delusion.

The Delusional Way Out

Psychosis and Delusions

Ideas of Reference

Illusion

The misperception or misinterpretation of real external – visual or auditory – stimuli, attributing them to non-existent events and actions. Incorrect perception of a material object. See: Hallucination.

Incoherence

Incomprehensible speech, rife with severely loose associations, distorted grammar, tortured syntax, and idiosyncratic definitions of the words used by the patient (“private language”). A loosening of associations. A pattern of speech in which unrelated or loosely-related ideas are expressed hurriedly and forcefully, using broken, ungrammatical, non-syntactical sentences, an idiosyncratic vocabulary (“private language”), topical shifts, and inane juxtapositions (“word salad”). See: Loosening of Associations; Flight of Ideas; Tangentiality.

Insomnia

Sleep disorder or disturbance involving difficulties to either fall asleep (“initial insomnia”) or to remain asleep (“middle insomnia”). Waking up early and being unable to resume sleep is also a form of insomnia (“terminal insomnia”).

Loosening of Associations

Thought and speech disorder which involves the translocation of the focus of attention from one subject to another for no apparent reason. The patient is usually unaware of the fact that his train of thoughts and his speech are incongruous and incoherent. A sign of schizophrenia and some psychotic states. See: Incoherence; Flight of Ideas; Tangentiality.

Mood

Pervasive and sustained feelings and emotions as subjectively described by the patient. The same phenomena observed by the clinician are called affect. Mood can be either dysphoric (unpleasant) or euphoric (elevated, expansive, “good mood”). Dysphoric moods are characterized by a reduced sense of well-being, depleted energy, and negative self-regard or sense of self-worth. Euphoric moods typically involve an increased sense of well-being, ample energy, and a stable sense of self-worth and self-esteem. Also see: Affect.

Mood Congruence and Incongruence

The contents of mood-congruent hallucinations and delusions are consistent and compatible with the patient’s mood. During the manic phase of the Bipolar Disorder, for instance, such hallucinations and delusions involve grandiosity, omnipotence, personal identification with great personalities in history or with deities, and magical thinking. In depression, mood-congruent hallucinations and delusions revolve around themes like the patient’s self-misperceived faults, shortcomings, failures, worthlessness, guilt – or the patient’s impending doom, death, and “well-deserved” sadistic punishment.

The contents of mood-incongruent hallucinations and delusions are inconsistent and incompatible with the patient’s mood. Most persecutory delusions and delusions and ideas of reference, as well as phenomena such as control “freakery” and Schneiderian First-rank Symptoms are mood-incongruent. Mood incongruence is especially prevalent in schizophrenia, psychosis, mania, and depression.

Misdiagnosing the Bipolar Disorder as Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Depression and Cluster B Personality Disorders – click on these links:

http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/faq17.html

http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/journal83.html

Mutism

Abstention from speech or refusal to speak. Common in catatonia.

Negativism

In catatonia, complete opposition and resistance to suggestion.

Neologism

In schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, the invention of new “words” which are meaningful to the patient but meaningless to everyone else. To form the neologisms, the patient fuses together and combines syllables or other elements from existing words.

Obsession

Recurring and intrusive images, thoughts, ideas, or wishes that dominate and exclude other cognitions. The patient often finds the contents of his obsessions unacceptable or even repulsive and actively resists them, but to no avail. Common in schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Obsessions in the Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Panic Attack

A form of severe anxiety attack accompanied by a sense of losing control and of an impending and imminent life-threatening danger (where there is none). Physiological markers of panic attacks include palpitation, sweating, tachycardia (rapid heart beats), dyspnea or apnoea (chest tightening and difficulties breathing), hyperventilation, light-headedness or dizziness, nausea, and peripheral paresthesias (an abnormal sensation of burning, prickling, tingling, or tickling). In normal people it is a reaction to sustained and extreme stress. Common in many mental health disorders.

Sudden, overpowering feelings of imminent threat and apprehension, bordering on fear and terror. There usually is no external cause for alarm (the attacks are uncued or unexpected, with no situational trigger) – though some panic attacks are situationally-bound (reactive) and follow exposure to “cues” (potentially or actually dangerous events or circumstances). Most patients display a mixture of both types of attacks (they are situationally predisposed).

Bodily manifestations include shortness of breath, sweating, pounding heart and increased pulse as well as palpitations, chest pain, overall discomfort, and choking. Sufferers often describe their experience as being smothered or suffocated. They are afraid that they may be going crazy or about to lose control.

Misdiagnosing General Anxiety Disorder (GAD) as Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Paranoia

Psychotic grandiose and persecutory delusions. Paranoids are characterized by a paranoid style: they are rigid, sullen, suspicious, hypervigilant, hypersensitive, envious, guarded, resentful, humorless, and litigious. Paranoids often suffer from paranoid ideation – they believe (though not firmly) that they are being stalked or followed, plotted against, or maliciously slandered. They constantly gather information to prove their “case” that they are the objects of conspiracies against them. Paranoia is not the same as Paranoid Schizophrenia, which is a subtype of schizophrenia.

Paranoid Personality Disorder

Perseveration

Repeating the same gesture, behavior, concept, idea, phrase, or word in speech. Common in schizophrenia, organic mental disorders, and psychotic disorders.

Phobia

Dread of a particular object or situation, acknowledged by the patient to be irrational or excessive. Leads to all-pervasive avoidance behavior (attempts to avoid the feared object or situation). A persistent, unfounded, and irrational fear or dread of one or more classes of objects, activities, situations, or locations (the phobic stimuli) and the resulting overwhelming and compulsive desire to avoid them. See: Anxiety.

Posturing

Assuming and remaining in abnormal and contorted bodily positions for prolonged periods of time. Typical of catatonic states.

Poverty of Content (of Speech)

Persistently vague, overly abstract or concrete, repetitive, or stereotyped speech.

Poverty of Speech

Reactive, non-spontaneous, extremely brief, intermittent, and halting speech. Such patients often remain silent for days on end unless and until spoken to.

Pressure of Speech

Rapid, condensed, unstoppable and “driven” speech. The patient dominates the conversation, speaks loudly and emphatically, ignores attempted interruptions, and doesn’t care if anyone is listening or responding to him or her. Seen in manic states, psychotic or organic mental disorders, and conditions associated with stress. See: Flight of Ideas.

Psychomotor Agitation

Mounting internal tension associated with excessive, non-productive (not goal orientated), and repeated motor activity (hand wringing, fidgeting, and similar gestures). Hyperactivity and motor restlessness which co-occur with anxiety and irritability.

Psychomotor Retardation

Visible slowing of speech or movements or both. Usually affects the entire range of performance (entire repertory). Typically involves poverty of speech, delayed response time (subjects answer questions after an inordinately long silence), monotonous and flat voice tone, and constant feelings of overwhelming fatigue.

Psychosis

Chaotic thinking that is the result of a severely impaired reality test ( the patient cannot tell inner fantasy from outside reality). Some psychotic states are short-lived and transient (microepisodes). These last from a few hours to a few days and are sometimes reactions to stress. Persistent psychoses are a fixture of the patient’s mental life and manifest for months or years.

Psychotics are fully aware of events and people “out there”. They cannot, however separate data and experiences originating in the outside world from information generated by internal mental processes. They confuse the external universe with their inner emotions, cognitions, preconceptions, fears, expectations, and representations.

Consequently, psychotics have a distorted view of reality and are not rational. No amount of objective evidence can cause them to doubt or reject their hypotheses and convictions. Full-fledged psychosis involves complex and ever more bizarre delusions and the unwillingness to confront and consider contrary data and information (preoccupation with the subjective rather than the objective). Thought becomes utterly disorganized and fantastic.

There is a thin line separating nonpsychotic from psychotic perception and ideation. On this spectrum we also find the schizotypal personality disorder.

Narcissism, Psychosis, and Delusions

Reality Sense

The way one thinks about, perceives, and feels reality.

Reality Testing

Comparing one’s reality sense and one’s hypotheses about the way things are and how things operate to objective, external cues from the environment.

Schneiderian First-rank Symptoms

A list of symptoms compiled by Kurt Schneider, a German psychiatrist, in 1957 and indicative of the presence of schizophrenia. Includes:

Auditory hallucinations

Hearing conversations between a few imaginary “interlocutors”, or one’s thoughts spoken out loud, or a running background commentary on one’s actions and thoughts.

Somatic hallucinations

Experiencing imagined sexual acts couple with delusions attributed to forces, “energy”, or hypnotic suggestion.

Thought withdrawal

The delusion that one’s thoughts are taken over and controlled by others and then “drained” from one’s brain.

Thought insertion

The delusion that thoughts are being implanted or inserted into one’s mind involuntarily.

Thought broadcasting

The delusion that everyone can read one’s mind, as though one’s thoughts were being broadcast.

Delusional perception

Attaching unusual meanings and significance to genuine perceptions, usually with some kind of (paranoid or narcissistic) self-reference.

Delusion of control

The delusion that one’s acts, thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and impulses are directed or influenced by other people.

Stereotyping or Stereotyped movement (or motion)

Repetitive, urgent, compulsive, purposeless, and non-functional movements, such as head banging, waving, rocking, biting, or picking at one’s nose or skin. Common in catatonia, amphetamine poisoning, and schizophrenia.

Stupor

Restricted and constricted consciousness akin in some respects to coma. Activity, both mental and physical, is limited. Some patients in stupor are unresponsive and seem to be unaware of the environment. Others sit motionless and frozen but are clearly cognizant of their surroundings. Often the result of an organic impairment. Common in catatonia, schizophrenia, and extreme depressive states.

Tangentiality

Inability or unwillingness to focus on an idea, issue, question, or theme of conversation. The patient “takes off on a tangent” and hops from one topic to another in accordance with his own coherent inner agenda, frequently changing subjects, and ignoring any attempts to restore “discipline” to the communication. Often co-occurs with speech derailment. As distinct from loosening of associations, tangential thinking and speech are coherent and logical but they seek to evade the issue, problem, question, or theme raised by the other interlocutor.

Thought Broadcasting, Though Insertion, Thought Withdrawal

See: Schneiderian First-rank Symptoms

Thought Disorder

Vegetative Signs

Well, Dr. Atkins, developer of the popular and often controversial Atkins Diet, has made this possible.

Before his death April 17, 2003, Dr. Atkins as you may well remember, came under much controversy after publishing Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution in 1972. Back then, and even up until his untimely death, Dr. Atkins spent much of his career defending his belief that refined carbohydrates and sugars were not only the downfall of the typical Western diet, but were also responsible for the growing number of cases of diabetes, hypertension and heart disease in the American population. This lone cardiologist consistently challenged the rigid medical establishment, even being brought before a senate committee for his passionate beliefs.

Never wavering from his indisputable research, Dr. Atkins watched in disbelief as FAT became the enemy, an evil every dieter and concerned individual was to avoid at all costs.

By the 1980s, fat free had become the catch phrase of the day and every company with shareholders and profit margins in mind had come out with new fat-free (guilt-free) products to shed those extra pounds. The mere thought that a highly accredited doctor could possibly promote a diet high in fat, was not only unthinkable, but verging on blasphemous. Fat free zealots everywhere jumped on the ban Atkins bandwagon. Today, despite undeniable evidence and recognized studies published in esteemed medical journals around the world, the controversy continues in many cases.

What had the medical community up in arms was Dr. Atkins theory, which contradicted everything doctors and dieticians were ever taught. Dr. Atkins believed that fat was not the enemy and in fact, by reducing the healthy fats in our diet, we had inadvertently contributed to the expanding waistlines of good intentioned Americans. According to Dr. Atkins, increased carbohydrates and reduced fat intake were the real cause of weight gain and many diseases. Today, the typical American diet still consists of on average, 750 calories a day from sugar alone and much more in many cases. This translates to about 158 pounds of sugar per person each year!

This becomes relevant when you understand that the carbohydrates we eat are turned into glucose (sugar) and burned as fuel for energy. Health professionals argue carbohydrates are the primary source for energy production within the body. As such, a healthy diet according to the FDAs Food Pyramid should consist of 60 percent carbohydrates. The remaining should consist of fats, from which we absorb glycerol and fatty acids, and protein, our primary source of amino acids necessary for cell production.

What Dr. Atkins argued however, was that we are consuming far more carbohydrates than our body needs and the excess glucose is causing severe spikes in our blood sugar levels. This is a problem on many levels, but primarily because once sugar levels go up, the pancreas then releases insulin in order to move the glucose out of the blood. This glucose is sent to the cells to be used as fuel for energy. When the bodys energy needs are met however, the remaining glucose is then converted by the liver to glycogen and stored in the liver and muscles for later energy use. Once the bodys glycogen storage capacity has been filled, the liver turns the excess glucose into fat. What happens when we are bombarding our bodies with carbohydrates is that our insulin levels are also rising. This can lead to an entire host of other problems such as increased salt and water retention, which of course can lead to high blood pressure. It can also lead to heart disease, high triglyceride levels, an increased risk of breast cancer and polycystic ovarian syndrome, not to mention diabetes, a disease affecting 20.8 million Americans each year, a number that is expected to rise dramatically over the next few years.

The Atkins Diet is designed to not only lower carbohydrate intake but also push the body to burn fat for fuel instead of sugar. This process is called ketosis, not to be confused with ketoacidosis, a condition diabetics experience when their blood sugar levels spin out of control after consuming excessive carbohydrates. When the body burns fat, it leaves behind an ash-like residue known as ketones. The liver and the brain use these ketones as an energy source. When there are sufficient ketones in the body, the body is considered to be ketoic or in ketosis. For people trying to lose weight, ketosis is an obvious benefit to weight loss.

The Atkins Diet also serves another purpose. Dr. Atkins believed that many people suffer from food allergies, more specifically, an allergy to refined carbohydrates. In reducing and even eliminating in some cases, these refined carbohydrates, such as wheat and white sugar; individuals experience a variety of benefits. Often people eliminate chronic sinus problems, abdominal bloating, chronic fatigue and in general, they begin to feel invigorated.

Theory Behind the Atkins for Seizures Diet

To this day, doctors do not know the exact reason behind the success of this diet as a nutritional treatment for seizures. Of course, they have theories, but like epilepsy itself, much about the inner workings of the diet is still a mystery.

It is known that fasting has been used as a treatment for seizures for thousands of years. There are even references to this treatment found in the Bible. Although mentioned intermittently throughout the ages, it wasnt until 1921 when Dr. Rawle Geyelin, a prominent pediatrician, presented his positive results to the American Medical Association, that the idea to use fasting to treat epileptic seizures was considered as a viable treatment. Back then, the only medications used to treat seizures were Phenobarbital and bromides, so the idea that simply fasting a patient could cure their condition was welcomed with much enthusiasm.

Later that year, another doctor, Russell M. Wilder went one step further and published a paper introducing a diet he said could mimic the physiological effects of fasting. This diet was the first ketogenic diet and consisted of 80 percent fats and 20 percent carbohydrates and proteins.

The ketogenic diet was widely used until 1938 when phenytoin, a new anticonvulsant medication was introduced that promised to be as effective as the rigid diet and far easier to administer. The focus then turned to the development of new drugs and as more doctors prescribed these medications, the diet was essentially phased out. A few studies continued, but the medical consensus was that the diet was too hard to administer and as such, was effectively unsuccessful.

Then, in 1993, a two-year-old boy named Charlie Abrahams changed the outlook on this once valued nutritional treatment. Countless medications and as many doctors, were unable to treat Charlies violent seizures. He was eventually diagnosed with Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome, a severe form of epilepsy. His father, Jim Abrahams, a recognized film producer, began to research alternative approaches to epilepsy and came across the ketogenic diet. Charlie was brought to Johns Hopkins and prescribed the diet after which his seizures where miraculously and completely controlled.

After two seizure-free years, Charlie came off the diet. He had a few seizure episodes shortly after and resumed the diet for a time. Now, however, Charlie is completely off the diet and has been seizure free for years.

Many questions came about from Charlies amazing success. His story quickly became of national interest, once again putting the ketogenic diet in the spotlight.

Still, many questions remained and Charlies success led to the studies at Johns Hopkins using a modified version of the ketogenic and Atkins diets.

These studies, too, have been successful. While not all children experienced the same results as Charlie, the majority of these kids were still able to reduce their seizure counts by as much as 90 percent and reduce and even eliminate their medications in many cases.

The ketogenic affects of the Atkins diet are believed to be responsible for its amazing successes as a seizure treatment. Much like the diet works for weight loss by raising ketones levels through lowering carbohydatre intake, these same ketones are proven necessary for seizure control. We also know that children have been able to eventually come off the diet and continue to be seizure free, so something within the diet changes the bodys metabolic functioning.

For my family, interest in a nutritional approach to seizure control was also personal. My daughter began having seizures when she was only two-and-a-half. It was a terrifying experience for everyone and brought up so many feelings of fear, helplessness, anger, frustration and above all else guilt. We tried everything, including every possible medication her tiny body could endure, but nothing seemed to work and in fact, made things worse in some cases. It was my endless frustration and the horror of watching my daughter suffer up to 100 seizures a day that finally brought me to the Atkins Diet. In fact, my daughter was one of the original test patients for the Johns Hopkins study on he effects of the Modified Atkins Diet for Seizures.

Seizures, like many medical conditions are not well understood. If you or a family member suffers from epilepsy, it is imperative you investigate all of your options. While the Atkins for Seizures Diet may not be right for you, it is certainly worth exploring.