My Diet to fight the daily symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis

I asked my sister to contribute with her personal experience on the relationship between food and her health. As I say in the page How the Quest Began she was one of the reasons why I started my quest to eat a better and more conscious diet. Here is the translation of her post.


My experience:
My Diet to fight the daily symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis


A few words on MS


Not everybody knows that MS is not an age-related disease. It usually is diagnosed very early, on average before the age of 25, although the symptoms become more evident in older age, after many years of re-lapses. For those who don't know it, MS is a degenerating disease of the myelin that is a layer that protects neurons in the brain but also in the peripheral nervous system. The immunity system attacks the myelin, in one point or in more than one point at once, and this can cause the interruption of the function located in the point of the brain that was attacked. For example, it is possible to lose sensibility in one limb, or the ability to move, or sight. In the first phase of this disease, this kind of blackouts are temporary. Almost every time the brain can restart the interrupted functions by activating, if necessary, alternative circuits ( vicarious circuits) to transmit the necessary nervous messages.
Sometimes though, and with the progress of the disease, the damages are not bypassed anymore. For this reason, a person with MS risks losing most of her mobility and, more rarely, cognitive functions.
These are the most well known facts about this disease, but most people don't know that, even in moments of quiet between one attack and the other, the disease influences heavily the daily life of the affected people, even in the case of people that has no disability or mobility problem. It is typical of MS, in fact, a diffuse sense of asthenia, that makes the person constantly tired making the normal development of work and daily life harder. Besides, the person affected by MS has a very hard time recovering from stress and requires a much longer period of rest than a healthy person does.


My Diet


Many believe that they can control the disease thanks to a more or less strict diet, and this is not the place to analyze the different approaches. It is not my intention to mantain that, thanks to the diet, I have avoided any relapses, as I have no proof of that. I would like to talk about how my daily life has improved with the diet, and how thanks to it I don't feel everyday that terrible sense of tiredness that, at 30 years old, forced me to give up most of my free time activities, because after working 8 hours I had no energy left to face a dinner, a walk, the gym or simply a party.
My diet is based on three principles that, based on my experience, are the staples of my well-being:


1. Refined flour and gluten are bad for me


They are the worst enemies of my intestine, and therefore of my immunity system that is stimulated in the wrong way by the toxins that are created when the intestine doesn't work properly. The solution is to eat as much WHOLE GRAINS as possible and, if possible, alternate foods that have gluten ( like pasta and other grains) with foods that don't have any ( like brown rice, quinoa...)
Please note:
a) I am not affected by coeliac disease, but gluten is a protein that is hard to absorb for anybody's intestine, even for a healthy person. For this reason, it is useful to let the intestine "rest" every once in a while.
b) Refined flour, besides not having enough fiber, are a source of fast assimilated sugars that end up in the blood spiking instantly the glycemic index. These cause high insulin spikes that are dangerous also for people with diabetes and overweight or obese.


2. The importance of antioxidants:

Vitamin A, C and E should be abundant in my diet. When they are missing the tiredness clearly worsens and it is possible to notice even on my skin the signs of a tired metabolism. Therefore, obviously, I eat fruit and vegetables as much as possible. To help, I add wheat germ oil to my salad ( Vitamin E!) or I take vitamins with Q10. It is important to remember to take the vitamins during meals, so that they can combine with other substances, otherwise their antioxidant power is wasted. 


3. Good fat vs. Bad Fat


Myelin is substantially fat, so obviously I can't eliminate all fats, because I run the risk of making it weaker. Useful fats in this case are the monounsaturated fats ( like Omega-3) that are available in fish and in flaxseed oil, while the saturated fats that are in eggs, milk, cheese and red meat should be avoided. The saturated or long-chain facts have the ulterior defect of keeping our system busy in the process required to absorb them thus preventing the absorption of the monounsaturated fats.


From these three notions I created a diet that avoids, as much as possible, animal fats, except from fish and that is based on fruit and vegetables with a very keen eye on fiber absorption.
Obviously , the more you are careful with the quality of your food, the lower the risk of eating any toxins, and the lower the possibilities of starting a reaction in the immune system. Therefore, besides the kind of food, it is necessary to pay attention to where this food is from.


The effects of my diet


As I said earlier, MS is an autoimmune disease, and maybe for this reason it is easy to imagine that if I ingest a  lower amount of toxic substances my immunity system will leave me alone for longer. But even in the short term, I can testify that I have recovered the energy that I thought was lost, and a general sense of well being that is very important to better deal with the psychological aspect of the disease.
I am not extremely rigid applying the diet. I am a food lover and I often allow myself the luxury of a grilled meat or a heavily seasoned pasta, but the benefits that I get from the diet are such that in general it does not require a big effort to keep the diet up in my daily life. And, more importantly, when I feel more tired than usual, having a stricter diet has always worked to see immediately a quick improvement.


Food can be poison and it can be medicine


It might seem like an obvious statement but it is simple chemistry: our body is made by the substances that we put in it with the food, so it is obvious that food is not only fuel to be burned. The chemicals that we introduce in our body by eating are like poisons or like medicines, and their role goes well beyond the concept of diet as an instrument to lose weight.
The scientific studies and the medical treatments are more than welcome ( treatments that, for MS, don't yet exist: the medicine that are given nowadays are simple palliatives and sedatives of the immune system) but why should we make things harder by getting sick because of a wrong diet?
Even if your neurologist is not a believer in the impact of a diet on MS, he cannot say that it will be harmful. At most he can say that it has no effect, but I would recommend anyone to try: after all, taking care of yourself is already something that will improve your attitude toward the disease and, as far as I am concerned, it has already improved the symptoms.