Ketogenic Diet Shows Major Benefits for MS
 

News out of UVA this morning,

"Patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS) who adopted a high-fat, low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet saw significant improvements in their MS – including reductions in neurologic disability, fatigue and depression and heightened overall quality of life, a new study finds.

The ketogenic diet – popular for weight loss and among the fitness community – was put to the test among 65 volunteers with relapsing-remitting MS, an inflammatory disorder in which the immune system attacks the natural insulation that protects the body’s nerves in the brain and spinal cord. MS symptoms vary widely, but patients often struggle with cognition, dexterity and mobility.

In the new study, more than 80% of participants on the keto diet adhered to it for the full six-month study period. Participants lost body fat and reported significant improvements in fatigue, depression and quality of life. In addition, their performance improved on physical endurance testing, such as the six-minute walk…..”

Continues in press release linked:

https://newsroom.uvahealth.com/2022...benefits-for-ms

This doesn't surprise me one bit, especially with mainstream doctors & nutritionists pushing MS patients to eat plant-based diets that make them more inflamed. When I was a vegetarian 30 yrs ago I started developing MS-like symptoms with inflammation around my joints & nerves & muscles controlling them and suffered for several years. I became really concerned when I turned my head and involuntarily dropped the full glass of juice I was holding. Luckily someone suggested I try Protein Power and most of my symptoms disappeared. Tweaking then led me to an elimination diet where I found grains, legumes & dairy were the worst triggers for my inflammation. A friend of mine had many food allergies, but real unadulterated fat and meat, poultry & fish didn't bother her.

A pretty promising story, shame there's no published journal article to link to yet, but will look forward to reading it someday.

Given that the ketogenic diet, which was introduced several years ago with much hope for general health, has become a lightning rod over the past year+ due to hucksters attempting to sell their versions, some very distorted claims about what constitutes a healthy keto diet, and others who appear threatened by its apparent contradictions to what is currently recommended by the medical and RD communities, I find solace in these findings. While I no longer measure ketones, I eat to encourage fat burning by emphasizing protein, never removing the fat that rides along with the healthy protein sources, and consuming good vegetable sources providing a broad range of micronutrients. Timing meals to not over-stimulate insulin is a major aspect of this. A keto approach can be followed intelligently to achieve the health requirements of the individual. As we are learning with this study focused on MS and previous studies going back many years related to seizures in children, keto can be adapted to help mitigate these conditions. I, too, would like to learn much more.

The term ketogenic can apply to many dietary approaches under other names such as Atkins, low carb, Mediterranean (with imposed food limitations), Whole 30, and Paleo (with imposed food limitations). We are now aware that for those who are fat burners due to low carb, emphasizing dietary protein does not "kick one out of ketosis" due to gluconeogenesis, but blood levels of ketones fall over time when one is fat adapted.

Paper has now been published:

https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/early/...nnp-2022-329074

I have not heard of any disease study involving low-carb eating in which the low-carbers did anything but improve. There really appears to be no downside (there are a few people with genetic issues that can't low-carb).

Ironically my brother and I recently had a falling out because I said MS could be vastly improved with the right diet. He ripped me a new one. Being a pharmacist, he is100% in the drug camp. And cant see a new option.

Sadly, my father's sister recently passed after decades of MS. The last time I saw her, at my father's funeral, was 20 years ago. She was already wheelchair bound.

It seems to me that any discussion of diet and MS should at least make mention of Dr Terry Wahls who not only used diet to regain her health but continues to research the use of diet in MS patients.

Ditto.......

Dr. Wahls is a visionary.

I just read Misdiagnosed: One Woman's Tour of--And Escape From--Healthcareland by Jody Berger. She experienced tingling in her fingers and her GP sent her to a prominent neurologist, who ordered a scan, and told her she had Multiple Sclerosis. She left the office with a bunch of pamphlets because she was told, "pick a drug."

I've read about these drugs, and they scared me into reading Dr Wahls' book during a terrible flare-up. The deviation from her program is that she offers a step-down kind of keto program, and I did total elimination: meat only for about a month. The IMMEDIATE cessation of my worst symptoms (though it took months to fully heal) convinced me to be careful what I added to that, and I still am.

For anyone wondering, there was some weight fluctuation, probably from stress, since I didn't drink OR bake sourdough bread during the crisis :) and of course stress is terrible for all illness but especially auto-immune. I had a small flare-up, scaled back to my basic meat/fermented dairy/condiments and rested like a fiend. I'm feeling my strength returning.

For Ms. Berger, the prominent MS specialist, who was her only guide in this process, ended his interaction with the drug pamphlets. You get your scan and pick a drug. Next!

As only an investigative journalist can, she was in a place to explore different options. She wound up discovering it was stress combined with at least a b-12 deficiency and probably more. And that if she was scanned again, and the lesion had gone away, it wouldn't change her diagnosis. Because it's "unpredictable." Next!

If it had been Cause Bingo I would have won the big lavender bear because in the center of my square I always put VEGAN.

I will say this, that the author was an engaging writer, who admitted her good fortune in having the resources to explore many options and the ability to read a drug study.

At least she was not a committed or obnoxious vegan, because after the diagnosis she went for "comfort food" and referred to the chicken the way some people regard birthday cake. That was your body talking, Ms. Berger. You should eat more meat. I can forgive her because she had absorbed the culture-wide advice which equates meat with cyanide and was eating accordingly.

As of the book published in 2014, she still cannot get her MS diagnosis taken off her medical record. Which messes her up with health insurance. And even though the tingling has gone away, the MS doctor would not budge. She'd have to pay out of pocket for another scan, and I don't know if she ever tried that... but it was a stark reminder of how many other people would have taken whatever ailment their malnutrition was giving them to their doctor. Who would naturally prescribe drugs instead of food.

She was also fortunate that she never started taking the drugs, because the first thing she did was look up the studies and discovered they only helped one third of patients; but endangered all their lives from a LACK of a working immune system.

That's all medical science offers, and so this is incredible news.

That goes for ANY autoimmune disorder, as Dr Wahls asserts in her book. It let me understand my strange pattern of symptoms and reactions, and come up with a health strategy to meet and beat them before they flared up.