KetoCollege webinar tackles ketogenic therapy for patients with food allergies

The hardest part of ketogenic therapy is not always the fat ratio. It is finding a way to make medical keto fit a child who cannot take dairy, egg, nuts, or standard textures, and Matthew’s Friends put that problem at the center of a practical April 22 webinar.

The online session, titled The Ketogenic Diet Management of Patients with Food Allergies and Special Dietary Requirements, ran from 1:30 p.m. to 3:45 p.m. BST, with the platform opening at 1:15 p.m. Zoe Simpson, a PhD candidate and advanced clinical practitioner at Great Ormond Street Hospital, chaired the program. Astrid Allford and Charlotte Howard, both specialist pediatric ketogenic dietitians at Birmingham Children’s Hospital, led the teaching. Matthew’s Friends said the webinar was free, aimed mainly at health care professionals, and designed to build confidence in implementing ketogenic plans safely for patients whose needs do not match a standard template.

That practical focus matters because ketogenic therapy is increasingly being used in more flexible ways than many families first expect. Matthew’s Friends says its clinics for ketogenic dietary therapies were established in 2011 and provide medically supervised care for adults and children over age 1. The charity also says ketogenic dietary therapies can be delivered as an oral diet, a bottle feed, or a tube feed, with specific formulas available and plans tailored to individual requirements. The webinar agenda reflected that range, with attention to food allergy management, milk-free diets, egg-free diets, nut-free diets, vegan and vegetarian ketogenic options, selective eating, modified textures, and cultural or ethical dietary needs.

The clinical backdrop is deep. A PubMed-indexed scoping review says ketogenic diet therapy has been used as an effective option for drug-resistant epilepsy since the 1920s. More recent review literature shows why access now depends on flexibility, not rigidity: lower ketogenic ratios and less-restrictive approaches such as the modified Atkins diet and low glycemic index treatment are already part of practice in children with epilepsy. For families trying to stay within therapeutic goals while avoiding trigger foods, that matters as much as the original seizure-control science.

Food allergy is not a side issue in that setting. A 2022 review addressed cow’s milk allergy and ketogenic diet treatment in childhood epilepsy, and a 2022 case report described an infant with IgE-mediated cow’s milk protein allergy whose ketogenic treatment was complicated because standard ketogenic formula contained cow’s milk protein. The takeaway from that literature is clear: substitutions and shared decision-making are part of the job when standard formula or food lists collide with real-world restrictions.

Astrid Allford’s background on the webinar page underscored the scale of that work. She has more than six years of ketogenic dietetics experience and works within a pediatric multidisciplinary team supporting roughly 80 patients. Matthew’s Friends said joining instructions were emailed to pre-registered delegates 24 hours before the event, and the session would be recorded and made available later through KetoCollege eLearning. The broader KetoCollege program is also expanding, with KetoCollege Advance 2026 set as a three-day in-person meeting for existing ketogenic teams and a 10th anniversary dinner, a sign that medical keto education is maturing alongside the therapy itself.