Epilepsy affects at least 300,000 people in the UK – just over 60,000 of these people are children under the age of 16 (Epilepsy Society). Emma Williams MBE is the founder and CEO of Matthew’s Friends, a non profit organisation she set up to help families of adults and children with epilepsy follow medical ketogenic diets. Following her own experience with her son, Matthew, she is a staunch advocate and activist to allow those affected by epilepsy have access to this diet and potentially alleviate their symptoms. She discusses the principles of the diet and the evidence that it can help. We talk about the types of patients that the diet can help, why it should be medically supervised and its application in adults. Emma also describes the Matthew’s Friends organisation including the training programmes offered to health professionals. Emma’s aim is to allow everybody access to the diet who could benefit from it, train professionals to implement the diet, and to further research into which other conditions could be helped.
For more information, visit the website Matthew’s Friends.org. Find them on Facebook @matthewsfriends
