New Zealand Dietician Charlene Tan-Smith Creates KetoSuite App for Ketogenic Diet Treatment in Children with Epilepsy

Charlene Tan-Smith, a dietician working in New Zealand has created the KetoSuite app for Ketogenic Diet treatment in children with epilepsy. The KetoSuite app not only helps dieticians prescribing the Ketogenic Diet as a treatment option for epilepsy but also aids parents of children with epilepsy using the Ketogenic Diet.

While the Ketogenic Diet can yield incredible results, it is often time consuming and complicated as it has to be accurate within 0.1 grams to work. People using the Ketogenic Diet need to weigh out food and manually enter them into a spreadsheet to make sure that a recipe or a meal matched the amount of carbohydrates, proteins and fats prescribed by the dietician. For some families, this would mean 10-15 hours per week of extra work, which is why up to 30% of people stop the Ketogenic Diet because they find it too hard to stick with.

Because of the above, Tan-Smith began working on the KetoSuite app, which uses an algorithm to automatically count the amount of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats in everyday products available at grocery stores. According to Tan-Smith, entering ingredients for meals into a spreadsheet would usually take at least 30 minutes per patient per meal. However, with the app, she is able to complete this in a matter of minutes.  The time saved with the app means that she would be able to prescribe the Ketogenic Diet to more children with epilepsy and take on more patients.

For more information on the KetoSuite app, check out the article from Radio New Zealand (RNZ) here.