HIGH-FAT, CONTROLLED-PORTION DIET CAN HELP EPILEPTICS.

Byline: Evan Henerson

It's easier to know the rules than to understand them. When you're not yet 6 years old and you want to eat something tasty, it's easy to cheat. Even when you know that could mean missing a meal or a trip to the doctor.

Or worse, an epileptic seizure: convulsions and uncontrollable shaking, followed by the feeling that you don't know where you are. And as the case of the late track star Florence Griffith-Joyner proved, people can die from or during an epileptic seizure.

Jennifer and Jimmie Southern of Pasadena know about seizures, having dealt with them since their oldest son was 6 months old. Now they're doing everything in their power to make sure that none of their three epileptic sons - J.R., 6, Alexander, 4 and Sydney, 3 - seize again. The family relies on a ketogenic diet: High in fat, no sugar, and small, strictly regimented portions.

The diet first became popular in the early 1920s when doctors discovered that patients who fasted had fewer seizures. (Seizures are caused by random electrical signals in the brain.) Later research showed that high percentages of dietary fats stimulate the production of ketones, which, in many patients, have helped control seizures.

Today the diet is used primarily by epileptics not helped by medication. In many patients, after two to three years and a gradual weaning process, the brain's seizure cycle breaks and the person can return to a regular diet.

Children who undertake the diet start with a five-day hospitalization and a two-day fast. Deviations - or ``cheating'' while on the diet - often require another fasting period.

So a small bite of waffle swiped off his 2-year-old sister Kiera-Anne's plate meant that Alexander had to skip his next meal. A few cupcake crumbs scraped off a wrapper after a school party sent J.R. to the hospital after he experienced 45 minutes of convulsions.

If all goes well, after about two years, the children will be gradually weaned off the diet and resume normal eating habits.

The boys understand the need for food restrictions, but they also don't understand, their parents said. They think about food all day long. They ask for things they know they can't have. At their grandparents' house is a list of all the things they plan to eat once they get off the diet: pizza, french fries, cookies ...

Now, because November is Epilepsy Awareness Month, the family teamwork moves outside the Southern household. The children's grandfather, Tom Dragoo, is sponsoring a golf tournament in South Pasadena on Saturday; proceeds will go toward further research on the ketogenic diet.

``Our hope is if we can get people while they're young, maybe when they go out into the world they'll be more compassionate and know a little bit more about it,'' said Jennifer Southern.