Contents to Sections Below: Individuals Books Research Organizations Testing From the Celiac Perspective Mailing Lists/Forums

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Individuals

• Roger MacDougall was a famous British playwright, who was diagnosed with MS in the 1950's. The doctors felt it was best to keep the information from him. They thought it was in his best interests not to tell him what he had. It was not until he was bedridden that he learned what illness he had. When he knew about it, he did some reading, and went on a gluten and casein free diet. He recovered almost totally. MacDougall eventually wrote a pamphlet. Edited for the web and now found here: My Fight Against Multiple Sclerosis. [now in archive.org] Pamphlet published 1980 by Regenics Inc, Rt. 10, 2660 Touby Road, Mansfield Ohio 44903, Telephone (419) 756-2994 (Cost $2).
• In the Oct. 5, 1974, Lancet, Dr. Norman A. Matheson's letter "Multiple Sclerosis and Diet" was published on p. 831, wherein he outlined his having been diagnosed with MS and subsequently reading Roger MacDougall's story. He then described his return to good health and ended with: "I thank Roger MacDougall, whose diet made it possible to carry out these observations."
• At Chet Day's site can be found two articles by Ashton Embry: Multiple Sclerosis and Food Hypersensitivities and The Critical Need for Dietary Research into the Cause and Progression of Multiple Sclerosis.
• Betty Iams' site includes Suggestions for the Newly Diagnosed, which starts with: "at the least eliminating gluten, all dairy, animal fat and processed sugar." Then goes on with more recommendations.
• Jacque Rigg used trial and error to find the foods that were bothering her. See an article in the National Enquirer, and the Amazon reviews on her book Curing the Incurable.
• Multiple Sclerosis, The Blood Brain Barrier, and New Treatment by Timothy R. Stout says there are three related chemicals which have been found effective in strengthening the blood-brain barrier in animals. These are the anthocyanosides, proanthocyanidins, and procyanidolic oligomers (PCOs). All three of these are variants of a common class of chemicals called "flavonoids." Also see his MS Page. [now in archive.org]
• John Pageler has a description of The Modified Swank Lo-fat Diet. He limits less fats than Dr. Swank, and he uses absolutely no milk products. [now in archive.org]
• Linda tells her story My Experience with MS and Route to being Symptom Free. She took supplements and removed foods that she had positive ELISA tests to. [now in archive.org]
• The MS Diet from Captain Jess tells the story of Jess Thomas getting his health back from being on a gluten-free diet. [now in archive.org]
• Wendy's MS site has Swank Diet Information, a brief summary of the diet. [now in archive.org]
• Canes Undercover has articles on Benefits of a low fat diet and vitamins for MS. [now in archive.org]
• Glenna's Tests and Methods for My Natural "Program" includes a diet component. [now in archive.org]

Clicking on an icon opens in a new window. Text link does not. Ordered by rank at Amazon.

The MS Recovery Diet by Ann Sawyer and Judith Bachrach. Both of the authors, who had been diagnosed and disabled by multiple sclerosis, experienced incredible recovery on the diet. Within the first three months on this program, Sawyer was able to stop the disease progression and begin to walk short distances with an even gait. Bachrach, whose health has been declining because of MS for thirty-eight years, regained feeling in her toes in one week and after one year on the diet, has stopped taking all medication. This book shares the treatment plan that has dramatically changed their lives, and the lives of others who have discovered it. With inspiring personal stories throughout, it offers real help-and hope-for sufferers of MS. [Kindle]

Insights Into Lyme Disease Treatment: 13 Lyme-Literate Health Care Practitioners Share Their Healing Strategies by Connie Strasheim. While this is not an MS book, it is a new book and has a flawless 5 star rating at Amazon. All aspects of Lupus treatment are covered, from anti-microbial remedies and immune system support, to hormonal restoration, detoxification, dietary and lifestyle choices. Furthermore, the book ponders patient and practitioner challenges of treating chronic Lyme disease, and offers helpful insights to the friends and families of those coping with chronic illness. Patients can use this book to get new treatment ideas and to educate their local physicians. Practitioners can use it to learn about and stay current on the latest therapies.

Cooking Well: Multiple Sclerosis: Over 75 Easy and Delicious Recipes for Nutritional Healing by Marie Courtier, a health and diet expert, includes general nutrition information as well as tips on which foods to avoid along the path of nutritional healing. It claims maintaining a low fat diet with foods containing anti-inflammatory properties can improve your well-being by decreasing your MS-related symptoms and flare-ups. [Kindle]

Complementary and Alternative Medicine and Multiple Sclerosis by Allen C. Bowling M.D.,Ph.D. The first edition became the single source for information on complementary and alternative medicine approaches for the management of MS symptoms. The second edition, completely updated throughout, reflects advances in the field since the book's initial publication in 2001. Therapies are organized alphabetically so that readers can easily pinpoint a specific treatment and learn about its origins, merits, and possible uses in MS. Diet is just one of the alternative therapies discussed in depth.

Healing Multiple Sclerosis: Diet, Detox & Nutritional Makeover for Total Recovery by Ann Boroch walks the reader through how to create a regimen tailored to one's specific needs, including foods to avoid (sugar, caffeine) , nutritional supplements to take, breathing techniques and strengthening exercises, "stress-busting" methods, and much more. The strongest point of the book shows the digestive connections to auto immune phenomenea, but the author places all her eggs in the yeast/fungal basket.

In Gluten Intolerance Beatrice Trum Hunter writes about a Dr. R. Shatin in Australia who "has suggested that an inherited susceptibility to multiple sclerosis is from a primary lesion in the small intestine resulting from gluten intolerance, and that the demyelination is secondary. Shatin suggested that the high incidence of multiple sclerosis in Canada, Scotland and western Ireland may be related to the predominant consumption of Canadian hard wheat, which has the highest gluten content of all wheat varieties. In contrast, the incidence of multiple sclerosis is low among indigenous Equatorial Africans who mainly consume non-gluten containing grains such as millet."

Dietary Supplements and Multiple Sclerosis: A Health Professional's Guide by Allen C. Bowling and Thomas M. Stewart. Supplements are arranged in alphabetical order under the most commonly used name. In addition, the index contains a listing of these common names as well as less common names that may be encountered. The main information about the supplements is written in a concise summary form that usually discusses only the MS relevance of the supplement.

New Developments for MS Sufferers (By Appointment Only) by Jan de Vries. This is a follow-up to his Multiple Sclerosis, this reveals more recent developments in the treatment of the disease. Drawing on nearly 40 years experience of treating MS sufferers, Jan de Vries, working closely with Professor Roger MacDougall, advocates a gluten-free diet, not only as a means of controlling MS, but also for those suffering from autism and schizophrenia. The volume discusses these findings and provides a guide to following a gluten-free diet in everyday life. Jayne Martin, an MS sufferer successfully treated by Jan de Vries, shares the challenges she overcame in following the diet and provides easy-to-follow recipes. There are no customer reviews at Amazon.

Multiple Sclerosis: A Self-Help Guide to Its Management by Judy Graham has info on diet as well as supplements and alternative therapy.

Multiple Sclerosis: A Comprehensive Guide to Effective Treatment (The Natural Way Series) by Richard Thomas is an introductory guide offering invaluable and up-to-date advice on MS and covers the wide range of effective natural therapies available including nutrition, homeopathy, yoga, acupuncture, reflexology, hydrotherapy, and oxygen therapy. No reviews at Amazon, so I don't know what diet advice is in the book.

The following books are not shipped by Amazon:

The Multiple Sclerosis Diet Book: A Low-Fat Diet for the Treatment of M.S. by Roy L. Swank is the classic for MS diet, though the recommendations have become a little dated.

Exercises for Multiple Sclerosis: A Safe and Effective Program to Fight Fatigue, Build Strength, and Improve Balance by Brad Hamler outlines a detailed exercise plan that can help MS sufferers overcome their symptoms, especially fatigue and mobility problems.

MS: Something Can Be Done and You Can Do It: A New Approach to Understanding and Managing Multiple Sclerosis by Robert W. Soll and Penelope Grenoble connects MS with food allergies, and contains simple methods you can use at home for testing allergies in your own diet. It was published by Contemporary Books, Inc., Chicago, 1984. It currently is out-of-print. It should be obtainable through inter-library loan.

Curing the Incurable: How to use your body's natural self-healing ability to overcome M.S. and other diseases by Jacque C. Rigg presents an another approach to traditional medicine and tells the remarkable story of one woman's recovery from Multiple Sclerosis by adapting a natural, proactive approach. The author includes essential information on food and nutrition, healthful recipes, along with a comprehensive index for alternative medicine resources.

Multiple Sclerosis: A Self-help Guide by Judy Graham. A practical, self-help guide to MS providing important information on how to live with it. Drawing on extensive research and personal stories, it provides an overview of orthodox and alternative medical methods to help the reader make an informed choice about which treatment is right for them. Includes the latest information on food allergies, special diets, exercise, nutritional supplements, alternative therapies, yoga etc. It also provides guidance on physical and emotional factors such as relationships, sex, pregnancy and childbirth. There are no reviews an Amazon.

In Can A Gluten-Free Diet Help? How? Lloyd Rosenvold, M.D. tells the Roger MacDougall story and other anecdotes. Now out-of-print, but you can read the reviews, especially the one by Ron Hoggan under the subject "A great gift for skeptical..".

In Multiple Sclerosis (By Appointment Only), by Jan de Vries in the UK, it recommends absolutely no gluten and very high reduction of dairy products, refined sugar, and saturated fats. He says that one of his most successful case studies, confirm that 'absolutely not one pinch if flour' i.e. absolutely no gluten at all... 'otherwise you are deceiving yourself.'

• W.J. Lutz, MD in "The Colonisation of Europe and Our Western Diseases" (Medical Hypotheses, Vol. 45, pages 115-120, 1995) argues that there is a clear, inverse relationship between civilisatory diseases and the length of time the people of a given region of Europe have had to adapt to the high carbohydrate diet associated with the cultivation of cereal grains that was begun in the Near East, and spread very slowly through Europe. A quote from the first page of the article: "In over thirty years of clinical practice, I have found, as published in numerous papers and several books (3, 4), that diet works well against Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, multiple sclerosis, heart failure, acne and other problems." The webmaster can e-mail a copy of the article text to those requesting.
• An excerpt from: Cordain L, Cereal Grains: Humanity's Double Edged Sword. World Review of Nutrition & Dietetics, 1999;84:19-73. See full article here.
• In Researchers Determine That MS And Diabetes Are Closely Linked Diseases they point out the role cow milk protein plays as a risk factor in the development of both diseases for people who are genetically susceptible.
• The Neurology WebForum at Mass General Hospital had Ashton Embry posting on article on DIRECT-MS. See many followups. [now in archive.org]
• University of Maryland Researchers Discover "Key" to Blood-Brain Barrier is a press release on the identification of a receptor in the human brain that regulates the interface between the bloodstream and the brain.
• Researchers find increased zonulin levels among celiac disease patients is an alert of a study published in The Lancet. Suggest that increased levels of zonulin are a contributing factor to the development of MS.
• "MS-Something Can Be Done and You Can Do It." by Dr. Robert W. Soll Dr. Soll's theory is that the body produces "endotoxins" when an "allergic food is consumed (this can take as long as three days). These "endotoxins" cause "myelin delamination/destruction".
• Multiple Sclerosis: The Evers Therapy discusses the success a German doctor had using nutritional therapy, mostly a diet of only unprocessed and mostly uncooked foods.
• Multiple Sclerosis discusses Dr. Klenner's vitamin protocol. He used unusually large quantities of nutrients, especially thiamin.
• Multiple Sclerosis - The Immune System's Terrible Mistake by Peter Riskind, M.D., PH.D. mentions the "molecular mimicry" theory, but fails to see a connection with food being a possible trigger. Here's a student's review of it.

• DIRECT-MS(DIet REsearch into the Cause and Treatment of Multiple Sclerosis) is a foundation set up by Ashton Embry to study diet and MS. The web site is Nutritional Factors and Multiple Sclerosis. See many articles, including a comprehensive essay on the value of adequate vitamin D supplementation for persons with MS. A best site.
• Mac's Picks, a site in New Zealand, has What is DIRECT-MS and how can you help? [now in archive.org]
• The Rocky Mountain MS Center has a site on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). There is some discussion of diet, mostly in the area of supplements.
• A page on MS and Milk from the Carbondale Center for Macrobiotic Studies was available at one time. It blamed dairy for the distribution of MS. Formerly at: http://commercial-directory.clever.net/health/msmilk.htm. This webmaster does have a copy.

• Proponents of using dietary intervention for MS recommend ELISA serum tests to establish food sensitivities. One relatively inexpensive lab is Meridian Valley Laboratory.
• Sage Systems has a Comprehensive ELISA Allergy Test and Treatment for the Relief of Chronic Illness.
• Many different sites will lead you to the same food scan test which does not require a blood draw, only a finger prick. Here is one: The IgG ELISA Food Intolerance Test.
• The largest outfit that does ELISA testing for food allergy/intolerance is in Fort Lauderdale. The parent company site Immuno Laboratories is oriented towards doctors. Then they have a consumer site: Better Health USA Food Allergy Relief Center.
• And for those in the UK: York Nutritional Laboratory.

• According to Joe Murray MD (now at the Mayo Clinic) there is the possibility that the MS patient suffers from a neurologic complication of undiagnosed celiac disease. About 5% of celiac patients get nerve damage that can vary from tingling and numbness in the feet to confusion, memory loss, dizziness and loss of balance, visual abnormalities. This sometimes happen in the absence of GI symptoms.
• The following is a list of articles in medical journals, which were published at about the time that prednisone became popular in the treatment of MS. They appear to connect MS with celiac-like intestinal morphology.
  • Cook, Gupta, Pertschuk, Nidzgorski "Multiple Sclerosis and Malabsorption" Lancet; June 24, 1978, p. 1366
  • Fantelli, Mitsumoto & Sebek "Multiple Sclerosis and Malabsorption" Lancet May 13, 1978 p. 1039-1040
  • Davison, Humphrey, Livesedge et al. "Multiple Sclerosis Research" Elsevier Scientific Publishing New York, 1975
  It is curious that the connection between malabsorption and MS stopped at about the same time that prednisone and other such steroids became the treatment of choice for MS. As is known, prednisone incites the re-growth of the villi despite the ingestion of gluten, in the celiac gut. Investigators who did endoscopies on MS patients admit that they have not asked about the patients' use of such drugs.
• Some literature from the celiac view point:
  • Drs. Cooke & Holmes in Coeliac Disease 1984; Churchill Livingstone, NY say that 10% of celiacs have neuropathic symptoms. Many appear to be associated with demyelination. Fineli et. al. echo that figure in "Adult celiac disease presenting as cerebellar syndrome" Neurology 1980; 30: 245-249.
    Cooke & Holmes come right out and express some of their frustration with neurologists for ignoring the potiential for neuropathic celiac.
  • In Beversdorf D, Moses P, Reeves A, Dunn J "A man with weight loss, ataxia, and confusion for 3 months" Lancet 1996 Feb 17;347(8999):446
    They discuss the neurological manifestations of adult celiac disease which include cerebellar ataxia, sensory neuropathy, myopathy, hyporeflexis, and seizures. These symptoms resemble those of Vitamin E deficiency. Patients with abetalipoproteinaenemia, who lack the lipoproteins necessary to carry fat-soluble vitamins, have similar symptoms. These patients respond to water-miscible Vitamin E supplementation.
  • In Cooke WT, Neurologic manifestations of malabsorption. In Handbook of clinical neurology, volume 28 (metabolic deficiency diseases of the nervous system, part II), Amsterdam; North Holland Publishing Company, 1976; 225-41.
    They discuss the many neurological manifestations that are associated with coeliac disease, including ataxia, peripheral neuropathy, myelopathy, myopathy, and dementia.
  • A new school has emerged, on the heels of the following report:
    Hadjivassiliou, et. al. "Does cryptic gluten sensitivity play a part in neurological illness?" Lancet 1996; 347: 369-371
    They found that 57 percent of those with neurological problems of unknown cause also had antibodies to gliadin, which is a component of gluten. Sixteen percent of them had coeliac disease, a much higher level than normally found. Most of the patients with the anti-gliadin antibodies did not have other symptoms of coeliac disease such as poor absorption of vitamins.
  • Hadjivassilou et. al. "Clinical, radiological, neurophysiological, and neuropathological characteristics of gluten ataxia" The Lancet 1998; 352: 1582-1585.
    The abstract summary reads, "Gluten sensitivity is an important cause of apparently idiopathic ataxia and may be progressive. The ataxia is a result of immunological damage to the cerebellum, to the posterior columns of the spinal cord, and to peripheral nerves. We (the authors) propose the term gluten ataxia to describe this disorder."
    Patients with ataxia (a neuromuscular disorder) who attended a neurology clinic were screened for celiac disease (biopsy and HLA). The authors identified 28 patients with gluten sensitivity and ataxia with no other predisposing cause. The neurological symptoms preceded the diagnosis of celiac disease.

• MS-Diet Support Group is the forum for people following Ashton Embry's Best Bet Diet. The MS-Diet Support Group also has an Archives Page and FAQ.

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