Diet

[Neworleanslady]

Ive started reading the multiple sclerosis diet book by roy laver.swank and barbara brewer dugan that was recommended by my infectious disease dr (i went to see him for shingles and other vax before starting Ocrevus). The doctor said he’d done his thesis on MS and he highly recommended this book/recipes. I love it so far!

[Sweetheartonvdayl]

Hi 😊

[starlight5]

Glad you are enjoying it. I believe the OMS diet (overcoming ms) is largely based on Swanks research.

[Neworleanslady in reply to starlight5]

Do you follow that book?

[starlight5 in reply to Neworleanslady]

I did when first diagnosed. Then a version of the Wahls diet and the Gundry Plant Paradox diet.

It makes sense that one feels better following any of these because they are mostly plant based and have eliminated sugar, processed and junk foods. How much they actually help ms? who knows... you have to follow them for years before they start to "reverse" your ms...

[Jer29-11 in reply to starlight5]

Yes, I agree. I’ve been following Wahl’s for awhile now. I feel much better and MS is stable, but I think it’s because I’m eating a massive amount of veggies every day. I’m a nurse and I’ve always said (even prior to MS) that eating lots of fruit/veggies in the diet would cure 95% of the diseases we see. Please let us know how you do on the diet!

[Sandydemop]

I’m eating the whole food plant based diet based on swank.

[CalfeeChick CommunityAmbassador]

Keep us posted please. Diets make me hungry😊

[Frances_B]

If you want to go vegetarian there will be an "MS diet" for you.

If you want to eat meat there will be an "MS Diet" for you.

If you want to be vegan there will be an "MS Diet" for you.

If you only want to eat fruit there will be an "MS Diet" for you.

If you think your MS is caused by candida there is an "MS Diet" for you.

In other words, regardless of what you want to be there is a "flavour" of "MS Diet" to suit - they proliferate all over the web, and put money in the pockets of self-appointed "MS Diet" gurus who write books about them, but the evidence behind all of them is cherry-picked to suit whatever any particular self-appointed "MS Diet" guru wants to promote in their particular "protocol".

OMS did come from Swank's work, but mostly the people who cite Swank as being a genius and constantly carry-on about how many years his non-randomised uncontrolled study ran for don't know that there were only 150 people involved in it right back at the start - so hardly a large enough group of people involved to base any conclusions on, let alone any conclusions of any scientific validity. The OMS paranoia about saturated fat is actually being shown to be incorrect in some of the newer general research on diets, and they also used extremely old and pretty irrelevant geographic mapping studies to claim that dairy products can contribute to people getting MS - they do admit that the evidence is "not conclusive" but recommend that people "err on the side of caution" and avoid all dairy products.

Quite a few of these "MS Diets" exclude or ban whole food groups and this is not healthy. For example, because so many people are jumping onto the vegan bandwagon without learning enough about nutrition there is an increase occurring in Vit B12 deficiencies becasue of the exclusion of all animal products.

There are two benefits from following these "MS diets" - firstly people start avoiding junk foods and drinks. The second is that it gives them a feeling of "control" over their MS - even if that "control" is all in their minds and not actually real. This imagined control aspect can get totally out of control and for some people an eating disorder can be the end result.

self.com/story/orthorexia-w...

Don't get me wrong - diet is important for good health, and there is a lot of validity in the one common theme across all of the "MS Diets" in relation to eating unprocessed food, eating more veg and fruit, and staying away from highly processed junk foods and drinks. However, there are a lot of conflicting "principles" across the various diets and they can't all be right. For example - here's a rhetorical question - if OMS and Swank followers are right about diet and MS, why do people claim to get "results" on the Wahls protocol? (which encourages eating meat and doesn't get hysterical about saturated fats.....)

Here's the best article ever written on "MS diets", and it's by someone who has MS.

msbites.com/multiple-sclero...

So, enjoy your reading about Swank, and then if you go and read some other books on other "MS Diets" you will probably end up completely confused as to what you should do. If you want to enjoy food, and eat a healthy diet you'd do far better to follow a Mediterranean diet, which does have solid science to back it as your MS is pretty well irrelevant in relation to diet, and the same advice that applies to people who don't have MS applies to people who do have MS.

🙄

[Neworleanslady in reply to Frances_B]

The swank book doesnt ban meat, it avoids red meat mainly because of the saturated fat. But it gives some recipes for beef. He encourages chicken and poultry. And seafood. And eggs and vegetables. Almost no dairy it says, but I haven’t read that far yet. He talks about a MUCH larger sample size but I’ll have to look back on the number. Although i went to my daughter’s tennis banquet tonight and, having eaten only salad and vegetables, came home very hungry.

[Frances_B in reply to Neworleanslady]

Re Swank "talking about a much larger sample size" - Swank's study originally recruited around 250 people but only about 150 were followed up for more than a couple of years.

jamanetwork.com/journals/ja...

Jelinek/OMS picked up on Swank's theories but extended them a lot further into a much stricter regimen. Also, knowledge about any role of Vit D in MS was not really known about when Swank started his study, but a few years in he did add cod liver oil to what his patients were supposed to take, so that would have helped with Vit D levels.

[ahrogers in reply to Frances_B]

My previous neuro was vegan and she didn't believe in any of the MS diets improving MS but just your general health as you mention.I am an oncology nurse and cancer patients get caught up in all the different cancer diets advertised out there too.

As you said the Mediterranean diet is one of the best for overall health. I tell my patients our advice is the same as you have been told all along, healthy diet and exercise 😁 we then make changes based on side effects of treatment such as low residue diet if they are having diarrhea.

[starlight5 in reply to Frances_B]

Great response, you have summed up my conclusions regarding diets and ms well. Thank you for the ms bites link, I read it a few years ago and it is worth reading again.

[Neworleanslady in reply to Frances_B]

I was all about Mediterranean previously, which is also encouraged by swank. That doctor had recommended swank to me and i want to check it out. He’d said he did his thesis on MS and figuring from about how old he looked (the doc) then probably swank was a big MS thing then. Maybe still has some good I’ll/we’ll see!

[kdali]

This took me down memory lane! I had switched to OMS from vegan and the book had some helpful lifestyle recommendations at the time that I wasn’t seeing elsewhere. There are online forums full of people loving it, and lots of free info online. It aggravated other health issues, and I’m not saying that to bash, just being honest. I hope you give it a nudge and let us know that you have better energy, sleep, or something like that. GL!

[MarkUpnorth]

This is a topic I really am into. I did the Whal's thing, read all the books. Found out the hard way, actually first, having to just stop eating altogether, or live in a coma. So I juiced, juiced, juiced. Did real food, then went comatose, Juiced, juiced, juiced, real food, comatose. Why?Don't know. A gut reset? Only guesses. Anyway, enough trial and error, worked my way back up to real food, by using a mega mixer to juice with pulp, then eventually added real food back in, but following many of the Whal's ideas.Bottom line, stay away from processed foods altogether. Eat Fruits, Vegetables, Lean meats, fish, seafood, but as a compliment to the rest, not the other way around. A vegetable to go with dinner is the way it used to be. Now the other way around. BUT, AGAIN, if it comes in a package with all the things you don't know what it is, can't even pronounce it....Stay away from it. All those additives to do this, and that. Keep that hot dog edible for decades, you may not die from eating it right out of the landfill, but I feel that's what M.S. really feeds on, all those additives. I took several years of chemistry. I know an apple is nothing more than chemicals. But, I think nature has figured it out properly.

[Neworleanslady]

I like the hard won ideas of the MarkUpnorth diet! Thanks for your seemingly sensible input!

I feel like i do eat this way for the most part. I can’t imagine how bad off id be if i ate fast food.