Re: Specific MS Foods (such as gluten free, etc, what/where to buy

[Guest guest]

Larry,A little rationale... I've been on the Swank diet for over twenty years. I have done surprisingly well with MS according to my neurologist and I know this is because of Dr. Swank's diet. Every time I have gone off of it because I feel so well and so much like a "normal, healthy person", it's not long before an exacerbation occurs. In Dr. Swank's book, THE MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS DIET BOOK, he goes into great depth in explaining his reasoning behind his MS patients eating very low amounts of saturated fat. In an interview with Dr. McDougall he said "We found a heavy-fat diet caused changes in circulation. After a typical, high-fat American meal red blood cells become very sticky and would bind to one another. About three hours after a meal they aggregated together to form clumps. And these clumps are large enough and tough enough so they can obstruct circulation in small capillaries throughout the body. We have also seen these changes in animals after feeding them a high-fat diet, and we also found a breakdown of the blood-brain barrier in these animals. I think this kind of injury results in the perivascular lesions (damage around blood vessels classically seen in MS) that are typical of MS." Also, in the book REVERSING MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS by C. Pepe she writes, "Dr. Swank believed that saturated fats compete with myelin for essential body raw materials. These raw materials - enzymes, vitamins, and nutrients are diverted to process the saturated fats consumed by the body. The body has a finite number of these substances, and consuming saturated fats takes them away from the maintenance and repair of the myelin sheath. This diverting of material slows the healing process and allows the disease to feed upon the weakened cells more easily."Hope that helps a little,AnitaIf you have MS (as I do), besides general good healthy eating habits why should gluten free or fat free or any other fad diet have any effect on this disease? It is pretty scary getting diagnosed (better than being in diagnosis limbo, though), I think we all should want/expect some proof or scientific rationale supporting new treatments,I know the Swank diet had many adherents but I never saw any rationale for a low-fat diet affecting the disease (beyond the obvious benefits of eating healthier).That is not to say don't try new things (I take LDN daily) but you should apply some measure of skepticism to new treatments.Larry