Did you ever see the movie Lorenzo's Oil? If you haven't, I highly recommend it. In short, it's about a young boy diagnosed with a rare disease. Ultimately, it's found that a special diet with certain fats helped him. I just stumbled across a news story that reminds me so much of that movie.

Ella, a six-year-old girl from the UK, was recently part of a clinical trial to test the effects of a ketogenic diet on epilepsy. Ella was healthy until her first birthday when she contracted pneumococcal meningitis. The severe infection left her with both hearing and learning difficulties. Later, after experiencing seizures, she was also diagnosed with epilepsy.

There was a brief, few months after her fourth birthday when Ella was free of seizures. The reprieve didn't last long, but it gave Ella's parents a chance to glimpse their daughter free of the debilitating seizures. That was the impetus for signing her up for the clinical trial.

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When we're young and told to eat healthy, we're influenced by promises that some day our bad eating will catch up with us. When we're older. But sometimes bad food decisions come back to haunt us sooner rather than later, as this article from eDiets points out. Want examples?

• High soda intake has been linked to seizures
• MSG in many Chinese dishes, not to mention convenience store foods, can cause drastic mood swings, panic attacks and depression
• Decreasing your sugar intake can lessen the effects of anxiety attacks

I believe it, although I also believe that you shouldn't get between certain people and chocolate (myself included) or the results could be disastrous.

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Patients that suffer a traumatic brain injury, from motor vehicle accidents to war-injuries from Iraq, are at an increased risk for developing the seizure disorder epilepsy -- on top of the many challenges they already face. But time and energy are now being focused on this somewhat newly realized issue, and efforts are being made to both identify those who are at highest risk and then intervene to help them avoid it if possible.

Sadly, the technology isn't completely there yet, and doctors are often frustrated because they know a particular patient is at high risk but can do nothing about it. On the up side, however, experts are gaining a better understanding of the condition every day, and several new drugs are showing definite promise in studies.

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Merck has stopped promoting the mandatory use of Gardasil that targets the human papillomavirus (HPV). It's probably no coincidence that their turn-around comes at the same time that reports from the National Vaccine Information Center are surfacing about fainting and dizziness reported by dozens of patients as side effects of Gardasil. There are also some concerns that Gardasil may cause infertility.

An early version of the Virginia house bill contained a clause addressing liability issues "if a female who is inoculated with the HPV vaccine becomes incapable of naturally conceiving a healthy child carried to live birth or experiences impaired fertility as a result of the HPV vaccine".

Legislators got that idea because the vaccine contains Polysorbate 80, which is linked to infertility in mice. The Merck HPV vaccine also contains sodium borate which is a common roach killer in each of its three doses. The National Library of Medicine (NLM) of the National Institutes of Health notes of sodium borate that it "is now known to be a dangerous poison, it is no longer commonly used in medical preparations." That was published in 2005. Yet the FDA in 2006 approved the Merck vaccine with this "dangerous poison" to be "commonly used" in these vaccinations. The symptoms of sodium borate poisoning according to the NLM citation include many of the side effects being reported after less than six months of the vaccine usage. These include convulsions, collapse, and seizures that include twitching of facial muscles, arms, hands, legs, and feet.

How many of these young women taking this vaccine will find out that they are barren 10 to 15 years down the road and what will their options be if they are forced to take this drug because of legislation mandates?

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Interesting news out of Australia this week, as a report states doctors there have recently seen three individuals who suffered epileptic seizures induced by toothbrushing. How so, you may ask?

Well, the brain may have something to do with it, as regions of the brain that control the hand and speech motor areas may have been to blame in the three individuals due to damage in those areas.

Doctors acknowledge that these seizures may be similar to seizures brought on by photo sensitivity -- but in these cases, sensitivity to the rhythmic act of brushing teeth may be to blame instead of flashing lights and associated patterns of light.

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