This Is The Best Diet For Multiple Sclerosis, According To Recent Research From A Functional MD

I spent four years in a tilt/recline wheelchair due to progressive multiple sclerosis (MS). Now, thanks to a diet and lifestyle program that I designed specifically for my brain, I am out of the wheelchair and back on my bike. My journey changed how I think about disease and health, how I practice medicine, and the research that I do.

To date, my team has conducted four clinical studies of the effect of the Wahls™ diet—a nutrient-rich paleo diet that includes greens, sulfur-rich and deeply colored vegetables, berries, grass-fed meat, wild fish, organ meat, and seaweed. Through my research, I have consistently found that people experience less fatigue and better quality of life as they followed this diet.

We just published a much larger study titled "Dietary Approaches to Treating Multiple Sclerosis1," where we enrolled 87 patients with relapsing-remitting M.S. and took baseline measurements of fatigue, quality of life, and walking endurance. We asked them to eat their usual diet and observed them for 12 weeks and repeated all the measures. Next, we randomly selected patients to begin either the Swank diet or the Wahls elimination diet. We repeated all measurements at 12 and 24 weeks.

For a little background, the key elements of the Wahls diet include eating six to nine cups of nonstarchy vegetables and berries and excluding gluten, dairy, and eggs. While the key of the Swank diet is limiting saturated fat to less than 15 grams per day. (Learn more about the Wahls diet here and the Swank diet here.)

Fatigue, quality of life, and walking endurance were largely stable during the observation phase, when participants were eating their usual diets. After 12 weeks, both groups experienced a reduction in fatigue severity and improvements in quality of life; however, their walking endurance did not change. Notably, the Wahls diet group had significantly better quality of life than the Swank group.

After 24 weeks, improvements continued in both groups, but those on the Wahls diet now had significantly greater reduction in fatigue, more improvements in quality of life, and significantly better walking endurance—compared to those on the Swank diet.

The research continues to build that if you have M.S. or another autoimmune condition, your diet affects your energy and quality of life. In my clinical practice, we see people with a wide variety of autoimmune problems who use diet and self-care to reduce fatigue and improve their quality of life.