This will be a brief post on how I’d handle a new diagnosis of MS from the perspective of diet and lifestyle. There is individual nuance that should be considered, but this could be a good starting point. I’m creating this post because I believe a lot of ground can be gained in the fight against MS through diet and lifestyle. There is no established medical cure for MS, but the world of diet and lifestyle intervention points to thousands of individual stories of people putting their MS into complete and seemingly permanent remission.
The reason for this is rather simple. MS is an autoimmune condition, and autoimmune conditions can and should be treated through diet and lifestyle modifications. If there are thousands of stories of people putting MS into remission with diet and lifestyle, there’s hundreds of thousands of stories of people doing the same thing with other autoimmune conditions, from the more benign to the deadly serious, myself included. For the most part the diet and lifestyle interventions for MS are the same as any other autoimmune disease.
The fundamental aspect of a diet for MS or any other autoimmune condition, is a diet that focuses on healing the lining of the gut. Specifically the fortification of sensitive epithelial cells, that are the first line of defense between what we eat and the rest of our body. These cells are particularly sensitive to many lectins found in foods that are a major part of the diet in North America.
The gut is like a fortress of our immune system, hosting 80% of all our immune cells. When the intestinal wall is robust, it serves as a discerning gatekeeper, selectively allowing beneficial nutrients to pass into the bloodstream while diligently blocking potential harmful intruders. This harmony between the gut and the immune system creates a serene immune response, quelling unnecessary inflammation and promoting overall health. When our epithelial cells are dysfunctional they fail to act as that ‘discerning gatekeeper’ and a flurry of activity by our immune system ensues every time food is consumed. Maintaining the strength and integrity of our gut lining is thus essential in fostering a calm and balanced immune system.
The main diet I’d look to is called the Autoimmune Paleo (AIP) diet. This was created by Dr. Sarah Ballantyne, a biophysicist and author of “The Paleo Approach.” It is wildly successful for people who take it very seriously. In addition to Dr. Ballantyne’s AIP diet, an MS sufferer named Dr. Terry Wahls famously put her severe MS into complete remission, going from being wheelchair bound to competing in triathlons, developed a diet called The Wahls Protocol. These diets are similar, because both have successfully identified the root cause of the issue: the integrity lining of the gut wall and the problems that certain lectins cause it. They both strive to eliminate these problematic lectins from the diet.
Keeping in mind what these two have identified as problematic for MS and other auto-immune conditions, and what they have identified as gut-healing, here’s how I would construct a diet for MS:
Restricted Foods:
- Absolutely no grains except a little white rice from time to time
- Absolutely no legumes (including peanuts, chocolate, etc.)
- Absolutely no nuts except a few macadamia nuts from time to time
- Absolutely no seeds
- No Nightshades (tomato, eggplant, potato, bell peppers)
Foods to Emphasize:
- High quality animal foods (grass fed meat, wild caught fish, turkey, chicken, etc.)
- Bone Broth soup (very important)
- Healthy fats (grass fed tallow & butter, olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil, avocados)
- Fermented foods (kombucha, sauerkraut, etc.)
Allowed Foods:
- Vegetables
- Fruit (including squash, cucumber, zucchini, pumpkin, and sweet fruits)
- Root Vegetables (sweet potatoes, carrots, beets, etc.)
- Mushrooms
- Raw Honey
- Maple Syrup
- Salt
- Non-seed herbs (cilantro, basil, mint, dill, etc.)
Foods to Experiment With:
- Organic Dairy
- Organic Eggs
I’ll say a few things about this list.
The first section, Restricted Foods, should be taken the most seriously. These are foods which are primarily derived from the reproductive parts of plants and are the most highly defended, chemically, by the plant. Although there are many different aspects of how the plants are defending their plant-babies here, many of which are problematic, the lectins are what is relevant for MS and autoimmune conditions. These foods in the restricted list of full of lectins which have been shown to be problematic for the lining of the gut.
The second section, Foods to Emphasize, should represent the majority of calories consumed. In particular, meat and bone broth. Fermented food can be great, but also can be easy to overdo. I prefer modest amounts. Bone broth is the key to restoring gut integrity, and should be taken every day as well as integrated into meals whenever possible. Home made bone broth is best, but because that can be extremely onerous to prepare as frequently as required, a commercial powdered bone broth is better than nothing. Still, try to make a habit of doing home made.
The third section, Allowed Foods, is basically everything else that could make up the remainder of daily calories. I would only warn not to go overboard on the vegetables. They have their own issues, not related to autoimmune conditions. They’re fine, just don’t be eating pounds of spinach, kale and beets, every day. I prefer whole fruits as they are generally the lowest in all the different, often problematic, plant compounds.
In the last section, Foods to Experiment With – some people have issues with these foods. For others, they are totally fine. It’s best to avoid them for the first couple of months, and then introduce them one at a time, in sufficient quantity, and see how you feel.
When the lining of the gut is in disrepair, the immune system is constantly in overdrive. In this scenario, every time a piece of food is ingested, there’s a massive immune response in the gut. When this happens over and over and over again multiple times per day for years or decades, the immune system starts to attack things it shouldn’t. In the case of MS, the myelin sheath. In my case, my kidneys. What it’s attacking in your body is actually less relevant than why it’s attacking any part of your body at all.
Our current lifestyle starkly contrasts the conditions under which our ancestors thrived and our genes evolved. For millions of years, our hunter-gatherer progenitors did not heavily rely on foods rich in lectins, such as grains, seeds, nuts, and legumes. From an evolutionary standpoint, these were ’emergency rations’, turned to in times of scarcity when more preferable sources of sustenance, like meat and fruits, were unavailable. However, today’s dietary landscape has shifted dramatically. Grains, legumes, seeds, and nuts, all replete with anti-nutrients like lectins, now constitute a significant portion of our daily caloric intake. Our bodies, rooted in an ancestral past, are simply not designed to process these substances in such large quantities.
Immune Support
There’s strong reason to believe that autoimmune conditions are also tied to vitamin D deficiency. The best approach is to get labs done every six months and see where your level is, and aim to raise it to the high end of the reference range. A dose of 10,000 IU per day of Vitamin D3, taken along with Vitamin K2, is what I would take at a minimum, even throughout the summer unless you are an absolute sun-worshipper. Surprisingly you may find that even that dose will not raise your blood levels up to the high end of the reference range. When dealing with MS or any other auto-immune condition, Vitamin D is the ultimate modulator of the immune system and we want to have more than just an ‘acceptable’ amount according to the medical community in order to combat the troubles with the immune system. Vitamin D, like bone broth, also seems to be critical for having a strong gut lining.
There are many people, myself included, who feel most of the work of healing from their autoimmune condition was cutting out the particularly problematic lectin known as gluten, and taking large doses of Vitamin D. I personally took 20,000 IU per day for at least 3 years without any issue whatsoever. There is a lesser-known MS dietary protocol called the Coimbra Protocol, which has been adopted by people, with a lot of success, for over 16 years now. It emphasizes the need for vitamin D and suggests doses in the 40,000 IU and more range while consuming a low calcium, gluten-free diet (to be clear: low calcium only to avoid issues with Vitamin D mega-dosing, not because calcium is problematic for MS or autoimmune conditions). The Coimbra protocol is close enough to the mark that it’s successful for many people, but the Autoimmune Paleo and Wahls protocols are going to work for virtually everyone, simply because there are many people sensitive to a variety of lectins, not just gluten. Nonetheless, as Dr Coimbra argues, vitamin D is crucial for dealing with autoimmune conditions such as MS.
Along with Vitamin D, I also like medicinal mushrooms as immune modulators. There’s a lot of reason to believe they should help, though I’m not aware of any evidence for MS specifically. I like these personally. Consider it optional.
