While there are different treatment options for dogs with idiopathic epilepsy (IE), many dogs do not achieve control of the disease with medical treatment alone. Through this non-blinded, prospective clinical trial performed in 10 veterinary clinics across Europe, the research team sought to assess the impact of dietary changes in 21 dogs that had been diagnosed with at least a tier 1 IE, did not have cluster seizures and that were being treated with the appropriate antiseizure drug (ASD) alone throughout 84 days. To evaluate the effectiveness of a dietary change in combination with the ASD, the team performed a dietary modification in the dogs by switching their current diets to one enriched in a 6.5% with medium chain triglyceride (MCT) oil.

After the 84 days of combined ASD and MCT diet, the study found the dog’s quality of life to be “very good to excellent” (with a score over 8.5/10) in 20/21 dogs. Results also showed that the mean seizure frequency decreased versus baseline as did the seizure days rate. As demonstrated in other studies, these results show that an MCT enriched diet in addition to ASD may have antiseizure properties in IE dogs.