The role of diet in multiple sclerosis alternative medicine

Though it has not been proven in the allopathic medical community, diet is an extremely powerful tool in managing and possibly preventing MS. Just as a healthy diet is the best medicine, avoiding certain trigger foods is one of the best multiple sclerosis alternative medicine programs out there.

One British playwright by the name of Roger MacDougall claims to have sent his MS in remission after he lost use of his eyes, legs and fingers and ability to stand up for more than a few seconds. He did this by eliminating the foods from his diet that he was most allergic to, such as dairy and gluten. After that his health and eyesight were restored."

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What foods to avoid

"Infectious agents are one source of foreign proteins which activates one's immune system to attack itself. However it is often difficult to avoid contracting common infections. Another main source of foreign proteins, which have the potential to activate the immune system against itself, is our food supply. Studies have shown the foods that have the greatest potential to cause autoimmune reactions are dairy, gluten grains (wheat, rye ,barley and oats), legumes (beans) and yeast. Thus persons with MS should avoid eating anything which contains these food types."

"The types of fats eaten can also affect immune activation and saturated fat (animal fat) and omega six essential fatty acids (vegetable oil) can be problematic. Thus persons with MS should use mainly olive oil (monosaturated fat) in conjunction with fish oils to provide most of their fat intake. In order to greatly reduce saturated fat intake, red meat should be avoided with skinless breast of chicken and fish providing most of the protein supply."

"Nutritional changes can also be very effective in controlling MS and slowing or halting disease progression. The key changes are:"

"Take a 4000 IU supplement of vitamin D every day

Eat fish at least three times a week and use a flax oil supplement

Stop eating any food that contains dairy products, gluten grains (wheat, rye, barley and oats), legumes and yeast

Stop eating red meat and greatly reduce the intake of saturated fat.

Use mainly olive oil for fat supply

Use mainly skinless breast of chicken and fish for protein supply

Avoid any food which causes an allergic reaction as determined by either a body reaction or a blood test

Take a variety of supplements to enhance health and heal various systems." www.direct-ms.org/nutritional.html

Suggested supplements for MS

The following list of supplements were taken from www.direct-ms.org/supplements.html.

The reason diet is so important for MS

"Dietary factors play a big role in MS onset and progression. The distinctive geographic distribution of MS and numerous anecdotal accounts (e.g. Roger MacDougall) have always suggested that diet may be involved in MS but a big stumbling block was that there was no obvious way that diet could be a driver of MS. This plus the lack of any financial incentive to test diet resulted in essentially no interest in the topic of diet and MS."

"The diet model for MS cause is as follows:"

"With time intestinal permeability increases due to various factors including food allergies, alcohol consumption, candida overgrowth and non steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. The consumption of gluten and legumes also increases gut permeability through the action of lectins (glycoproteins)."

"With a leaky gut, intact food proteins begin to escape the gut as do gut bacteria(e.g. E.coli).These antigens precipitate an autoimmune response by molecular mimicry of the childhood infectious agents and self antigens in the CNS. This results in activation of the autoaggressive memory cells. These initial reactions are most commonly successfully suppressed by a reasonably well functioning immune system before any clinically detectable damage is done."

"The chronic activation of the autoaggressive memory cells by food and bacteria mimics which are continually escaping through a leaky gut finally results in a failure of the suppressor side and a major autoimmune attack occurs. This is eventually suppressed and depending on the strength of the immune system and its ability to suppress autoimmune reactions the individual experiences a benign or severe reaction."

"The paleolithic aspect of the concept comes in when the question is asked why foods would cause such reactions? Clearly foods which humans have eaten throughout their development (2 million years) would not cause such reactions because all those with incompatible genes would have been eliminated by negative selection long before now. Thus the foods which cause such destructive damage must have been added to the human diet relatively recently such that natural negative selection has not had sufficient time to remove the incompatible genes from the human gene pool."

"Importantly the consumption of the new foods correlates extremely well with MS prevalence. Furthermore those who had reported success with diet revision had done so by removing these new foods from their diets. Thus data from a variety of independent sources is converging on the concept that protein rich foods recently added to the human diet are causing MS by molecular mimicry."

What is molecular mimicry?

"The currently favored explanation for autoimmune disease is that certain foreign proteins have a molecular structure similar enough to .self. proteins that the immune system of some genetically susceptible individuals confuses self proteins with the foreign ones. In MS the immune system attacks central nervous system tissues because, having been activated by a foreign protein, it mistakes the CNS self proteins for .foreign. ones. This theory is known as molecular mimicry and is widely accepted throughout the medical community." (www.direct-ms.org/hypothesis.html)

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