Matthews Friends - Lee-Anne McHarry, Dietitian

Lee-Anne McHarry, Dietitian

I am a Paediatric Dietitian who specialised in the ketogenic diet at St George's Hospital, London. I returned to Cape Town in January 2008 after working in London for 6 years, where I had the privilege of being a member of KetoPAG and working with children and their families on the ketogenic diet. My passion for the diet grew quickly and the children and their dedicated parents made my job as their ketogenic dietitian so much easier. Having returned to South Africa I have the same drive to bring the ketogenic diet to the forefront of all neurologists and paediatricians who care for children with epilepsy.

Together with Katherine Megaw I have set up ‘Keto Kids' a Ketogenic Diet Centre in Cape Town and hope to support and encourage children and their families on their ketogenic diet journey. We hope to offer training to dietitians in South Africa who would like to work on the ketogenic diet but have never initiated the diet before. I have a degree in biochemistry and dietetics and find the two complement each other greatly. I fine tune the ketogenic diet by monitoring blood ketone levels alongside blood glucose levels and have had many success stories. I met with Carrie last year at the KetoPAG conference and she really got me to take the plunge to use carnitine, which has given some positive results.

I am so pleased that MF South Africa has been launched as we have one of the highest incidences of epilepsy in the world and the ketogenic diet has not been used nearly as often as it should be. I look forward to working with the MF team and know that we'll be able to reach a far greater number of children with more experienced dietitians on board.

Lee-Anne McHarry RD (SA)

Paediatric DietitianTel: 021 701 6953 or 082 341 1616

Email Lee-Anne here