SAN DIEGO – Just over half of patients with epilepsy routinely take some form of supplements or alternative medications, results from a large single-center study showed.
"Supplement and alternative medicine use in patients with epilepsy is an understudied area of medicine," Dr. Kristen Kelly said in an interview following the annual meeting of the American Epilepsy Society, where the work was presented. "Our study is unique in that it was an anonymous survey, giving patients the freedom to respond without the physicians or anyone else knowing which patient was submitting the response," she said. "Also, this was performed in a large epilepsy clinic in Phoenix, Arizona, where a significant number of Hispanic patients receive care."
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Multivitamins, calcium, vitamin D, and fish oil are among the most popular supplements epilepsy patients take.
During her neurology residency, Dr. Kelly and her associate, Dr. Steve S. Chung, surveyed 500 consecutive epilepsy patients at the Phoenix-based Barrow Neurological Institute about their supplement use. A majority of patients (87%) completed the survey, which was conducted between February and June 2012.
The duration of epilepsy was less than 1 year in 5% of patients, 1-5 years in 15% of patients, 5-10 years in 15% of patients, and more than 10 years in 65% of patients. Approximately 52% indicated that they took at least one alternative supplement.
A total of 202 respondents listed the specific supplements they used. The average number of supplements per person was 2.7, and the most common were multivitamins (51%), calcium (25%), vitamin D (23%), and fish oil (18%). There were 49 supplements named that were used by five or fewer people, and 33 supplements named that were each used by only one person. "Three patients in the survey listed marijuana as one of their supplements or alternative medication," said Dr. Kelly. "Two of the patients took it because they believed it helped their seizures, and one for reasons not related to the patient’s seizure disorder. I suspect this will become even more common among epilepsy patients in the future."
Dr. Kristen Kelly
The study’s overall findings suggest that clinicians should ask epilepsy patients about their use of supplements or alternative medications, "because even well-recognized, common supplements can affect seizure medications," Dr. Kelly said. "In addition, many patients are taking uncommon supplements that physicians may need to investigate before deciding if the supplements have the potential to affect seizure control or seizure medications."
She acknowledged certain limitations of the study, including its anonymity and single-center design. "This did limit our data acquisition by not being able to review patient charts," she said. "There is also the risk of erroneous information given by a patient during any questionnaire-based study."
The researchers stated that they had no relevant financial conflicts to disclose.