Re: what is the swank diet??????

[Guest guest]

,

Just type "Swank Diet" into your search box. It is a very effective and good diet for ms'er's.

Regards,

Tom

[Guest guest]

From what I've been able to gather there are two diets promoted for

MS. They are the " Swank Diet " and the " Best Bet Diet " . The Swank is

a low-fat diet whereas the Best Bet Diet is low-fat and a whole lot

more. Since the Swank is less restrictive I am following it as a

first course and if it is successful then I'll stick with it; if I

feel more needs to be accomplished I'll phase into the Best Bet Diet.

(FYI, I've been on the Swank for 3 days and have had some relief; I

notice that coffee makes things flare up so for what it is worth it

may be good to give up caffeine in its myriad forms)

In order to follow either of these diets it will be necessary to keep

a record of ALL of the food/drink you ingest; therefore, I recommend

utilizing some free tools I've found on the Web including

http://www.fitday.com/ and " myNATS " [a free Nutrition Analysis Tool

(NAT)] which was developed the in the Department of Food Science and

Human Nutrition at the University of Illinois. I've also added links

to these sites under the links section of this group for your later

convenience.

**************************************

The Swank Diet is a low-fat diet for the treatment of MS developed

by Dr. Roy Swank over a 35-year period of research with hundreds of

MS patients. (see http://www.swankmsdiet.com/about.htm )

It's basic tenets are:

(1.) Saturated fat should not exceed 15 grams per day.

(2.) Unsaturated fat (oils) should be kept to 20-50 grams per day.

(3.) No red meat for the first year.

(4.) After the first year, 3 oz. of red meat is allowed once per week.

(5.) Dairy products must contain 1% or less butterfat unless

otherwise noted.

(6.) No processed foods containing saturated fat.

(7.) Cod liver oil (1 tsp. or equivalent capsules) and a multi-

vitamin and mineral supplement are recommended daily.

**************************************

There is also another widely touted diet called the " Best Bet Diet "

(See http://www.direct-ms.org/bestbet.html )

It's basic tenets are:

(1.) Avoid all dairy, grains, legumes, eggs and yeast.

(2.) Avoid all allergenic foods which are identified by skin and

ELISA tests.

(3.) Avoid all red meat and margarine

(4.) Eat fish and skinless breast of chicken and turkey, for protein

fruits and vegetables for carbohydrates and micro-nutrients and extra

virgin olive oil and unrefined sunflower oil for fats.

(5.) Take 17 recommended supplements

**************************************

> Will someone toll me just what the swank diet is? I dont think i

have ever heard of this one.

> Thanks

>

[Guest guest]

I know what you mean about coffee, I've been drinking it for a long

time now yet if giving it up will help me feel better then I'll have

no problem drinking water, green tea, whatever, instead.

Here is an antidotal story to read about another person who suffers

ill effects from coffee. The note is from another MS group here on

Yahoo! This was culled from MSCured

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/mscured/message/7828

---------------------

Hi

I'm just back from a week's holiday and thought I would tell you about

something that happened that I thought was interesting. Long term

members of this list will know that it's not me that has MS but my

partner, Ajay. She has been lucky to have taken an alternative

approach to her health since she was diagnosed and it has had a

really good effect. When she was first diagnosed her symptoms were

mostly sensory and cognitive - she would get up in the morning and by

the time she had dressed and got downstairs she then only had the

energy to spend the day on the sofa. She was unable to concentrate on

TV - no chance of reading - and struggled to have a coherent

conversation. She was in significant pain (and used to get horrendous

head aches) and had to crawl up the stairs. Every so often she would

have an episode that felt a bit like I imagine a stroke feels -

massive pressure on one side of her head and the other side of her

body not really working at all. Not good really.

We then found a doctor who takes an alternative approach - and has

good results. The first thing he did was to moderate her diet and to

give her massive quantities of vitamins and minerals - in a drip

straight into her arm. She gave up alcohol, caffeine, sugar, dairy

and all things processed and junky. Within a couple of months she

played hockey again. It was a struggle and wiped her out for a couple

of days - but she ran around a hockey pitch for 70 minutes which was

an enormous achievement.

Since then she's done all sorts of other things which have helped her

health; food allergy tests probably being the most significant.

5 1/2 years later you wouldn't know she was ill. She's much fitter

than me (not difficult really!) - plays hockey (and is also the

oldest in her team), walks the dogs, works hard and lives a pretty

full and active life. She's slipped off the wagon a bit but

essentially we have a pretty good diet.

Now to the holiday bit:- while on holiday Ajay likes to have the

occasional treat - and it's hard to argue, much as I would like to!

The extent of the treat was to have a decaffeinated coffee every

morning with breakfast. No big deal you might think - except that the

process of decaffeinating stuff is hideous and decaffeinated coffee is

absolutely to be avoided. On our second night she was really ill -

stroke symptoms as detailed above. Pretty scary given that she hasn't

had anything like that for a long time and that Morocco probably isn't

the best place to be seriously ill! She was ok the rest of the week

but very tired and achy - and her ankle started being extremely

painful and stopped working properly. We put it down to the excessive

amount she had been working before we came away - until our last day

when something a waiter said at breakfast made us realise that she

hadn't been having decaffeinated coffee at all. She had been having a

double expresso every morning. As soon as she stopped her symptoms

magically disappeared.

Contrary to how it might appear - we had a great holiday and now we're

back, she's fine! I thought this might be a useful illustration of the

importance of getting diet right. Not everyone is the same but I am

convinced that sorting out diet is at the route of getting on top of

ill health - not just MS but all ill health. It's not always easy to

work out what the right diet is for you but cutting out the obvious

stuff (as above), in my opinion, has to be the starting point.

O

---

> " (FYI, I've been on the Swank for 3 days and have had some relief;

I notice that coffee makes things flare up so for what it is worth it

may be good to give up caffeine in its myriad forms) "

>

> HOLDING MY FINGERS IN MY EARS! I don't what to HEAR that! Yes

I am a coffee addict and I want my coffee in the morning... PLEASE!!!

>

> Hugs)))

>

> Sharon