MS

[M134]

Hi everyone

Just had a question about multiple sclerosis not because I have it but I have a close friend with it and I want to understand it better.

Basically there seems to be a lot of evidence that people with MS have more saturated fat in their brain plasma and that a diet such as the Swank diet can help and indeed has helped many sufferers.

How does this tie in with Peat's theories?

Thanks

 

[Blossom]

I found this quote from RP that might be helpful. From Protecting and Restoring Nerves March 2014 newsletter
Ray wrote:

Cholesterol and the neurosteroids have a protective role in conditions that have been considered to be very different: ALS, epilepsy, Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, autism, diabetic neuropathy, depression, mania, hyperactivity, multiple sclerosis, for example. Many simple therapies and foods are synergistic with progesterone- aspirin, caffeine, niacinamide, sugar, thyroid, pregnenolone, vitamins d,e, and k, stress reduction. Regular exposure to bright light, and avoiding hypothermia, are important.

 

[4peatssake]

Forum member Haagendazendiane has a great thread on MS. Since Peating she has zero MS symptoms.

MS Symptoms Subsided and Were Gone in About a Month

Ray Peat has two informative articles with his views of MS as well a number of references to MS in other articles.

MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS AND OTHER HORMONE-RELATED BRAIN SYNDROMES (1993)

and

Multiple sclerosis, protein, fats, and progesterone

Another forum member, Dan Wich, created a great tool for us, a Peat search engine, so if you input "multiple sclerosis" for example, it will give you results specific to Ray Peat and/or websites, forums etc. related to Ray Peat and his work.

Ray Peat Search Engine

Haagendazendiane may have be able to speak more specifically to your question about the Swank diet etc. I am not familiar with it.

 

[HDD]

Hi everyone

Just had a question about multiple sclerosis not because I have it but I have a close friend with it and I want to understand it better.

Basically there seems to be a lot of evidence that people with MS have more saturated fat in their brain plasma and that a diet such as the Swank diet can help and indeed has helped many sufferers.

How does this tie in with Peat's theories?

Thanks

Since your post, I decided to look at the Swank diet because I did do his diet 25 years ago for a short period of time. However, I did not follow it completely because I remember that I did not like taking supplemental oils to get my required pufa.

Swank based his diet on assuming that the higher incidence of MS in Norwegian communities was due to high saturated fat.

From Swank-
"Three months later I received a complete report of the Norwegian study. The existence of MS along the coast was rare (about 1 per 10,000 persons). In the mountains it was more common (about 9 per 10,000 persons).

Based on these and other figures, food consumption studies were done in these areas. In the mountains the rural families lived largely on meat, milk, eggs, and cheese, whereas along the coast, people consumed fish and other food sources found in the ocean.

The Norwegian study confirmed and amplified our previous impression and led to our low-fat diet study of MS.

By 1950 we had established the low-fat diet maximum of 10 to 15 grams of animal saturated fat daily, plus 20 to 40 grams of unsaturated fat (oils). Protein was largely obtained by eating seafood, plus skim milk. In addition, vegetables, fruits and grains were consumed."

And this-

http://swankmsdiet.org/About%20Dr%20Swank

The specific causes of MS have been debated within the scientific community, however, Dr. Swank's 35 plus years of research show that the main causes are diet and lifestyle. His studies in different regions of Norway showed that there were far more instances of MS in those regions that ate more animal and butter fats (saturated fats) and far fewer instances in those regions that ate more oils from plants and fish (unsaturated fats). (See pg.5 of his book, The Multiple Sclerosis Diet Book) Most of Dr. Swanks MS patients also had a lifestyle that included an overload of stress.


Now, in contrast, Ray Peat's slightly more scientific conclusions-

The observation that multiple sclerosis is associated with the consumption of pork and horsemeat, but not beef, lamb, or goat, is very interesting, since the fat of those animals is essentially like the fats of the plant materials that they eat, meaning that it is extremely high in linoleic and linolenic acids. The rumen of cows, sheep, and goats contains bacteria that convert the polyunsaturated fats into more saturated fats. Unsaturated fats inhibit the enzymes that digest protein, and MS patients have been reported to have poor digestion of meat (Gupta, et al., 1977).


"Lipid peroxidation is very high in multiple sclerosis. Nitric oxide (whose synthesis is promoted by estrogen in most parts of the brain) is a free radical that activates peroxidation."

"Lipid peroxidation selectively destroys, naturally, the unstable polyunsaturated fats. In atherosclerosis, the blood vessel plaques contain very little unsaturated fat. This is because they are peroxidized so rapidly, but their high ratio of saturated to unsaturated fats has been used to argue that the polyunsaturated oils are "heart protective." Similar arguments are often made in MS, though some studies don't support the idea that there is a lack of any of the unsaturated fats. Since lipid peroxidation is very high, it would be reasonable to assume that there was an abundance of polyunsaturated fats being peroxidized through reactions with catalysts such as iron (S.M. LeVine, 1997) and nitric oxide and peroxynitrile"

Edit: I think the Swank diet at that time was good for me because it made me aware of my diet and started me on the path of looking to nutrition for health. I also believe that the hope it gave me was key. I did not return to a neurologist for over 10 years.