Category Archives: overcomingms.org

Weight loss on Overcoming MS Diet

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Hell, Happy New Year!  Proud to be asked to blog for Overcoming MS recently, and replicate my blog  here. It’s inspired by my patients, of course, and the ups and downs you  experience in moderating your health by adjusting lifestyle factors to address the serious condition, MS, and this is the first in a series of 2!

OK, so one problem people worry about, is losing too much weight.

What is “too much” weight to lose? What is ‘normal’ ?

obesity www.mirandasmsblog.com

We know that the average weight keeps on rising, with the USA leading the way; the average weight for women in their 20s has increased by 13kg (29lb) since 1960 (1).

A recent Gallup poll found that the average American man’s weight was up 7kg (16lb) since 1980 to 88kg (196lb), and women’s up 6kg (14lb) to 70kg (156lb).

But the really interesting finding from that poll was that people’s perception of normal has also moved. The weights people stated as their ideal had shifted almost as much as their actual weights – men’s were up by 6kg (14lb) and women’s up by 4kg (11 lb). And despite being over their ideal weights by these figures, most people reported that their weight was ‘about right’. (2)

In our culture we’re used to seeing skinny models – in a weird stylised magazine world – but not skinny normal people, unless they’re unwell. But thin does not necessarily mean weak or unwell. In my 20s I spent quite a bit of time in India, and I remember being impressed at how incredibly strong the very skinny, but wiry, bicycle rickshaw drivers and train porters were…and feeling quite ashamed of my weak, chubby, western ways!

sleeping rickshaw driver www.mirandasmsblog.com

Perceptions aside, another thing to remember is that weight loss will probably stabilise.

 

 

 

 

Increase your good fats

Firstly, remember the OMS diet is not a low fat diet – it’s a low saturated fat diet. Here’s what George Jelinek kindly replied to me in an email one time:

“There is no real limit to the amount of fat we should be consuming. Remember it is not a low fat diet, but a low saturated fat diet. That said, if you eat a plant-based wholefood diet with seafood, it will be really hard to eat a high fat diet, almost impossible unless you eat bucket loads of avocados, nuts and oily fish every day. Most people just physically can’t eat that much of that sort of food because it fills you up so much.”

So it’s okay to double-up on the flax seed oil, increase your nuts, seeds, avocados and oily fish if you feel you are losing too much weight.

Eat protein-rich food

It’s obvious I know, but if you’ve been used to eating ‘meat and two veg’, it’s important not to slip into just two veg. For inspiration from a culture with a history of getting its protein from a plant based source, we can again look to India, which has around 500 miliion vegetarians, and perhaps the most sophisticated and ancient vegetarian cuisine, based on the ancient medical understanding of Ayurveda, and using anti-inflammatory spices and flavourings which complement the flavours of vegetables and grains.

Vegetarian Indian meals will always include a dhal or pulse dish, rice, a vegetable dish, and a chapati or pure. I don’t worry about making so much each time, but I always try to include a source of protein. Pulses are a cheap and filling way to do this, and my next post will be on the best way to cook pulses for optimum digestion, and digestion in general!

Eating enough

Need I say more?

Exercising for muscle mass

This subject deserves it’s own post I think. I’m going to direct you to a great blog I found called ‘No Meat Athlete’ by a vegan athlete Matt Frazier. Here he talks about the method he found effective to incerase muscle mass as a vegan, managing to put on 7kg (17lb) in six weeks. www.nomeatathlete.com/gain-weight-vegan

For the time being, all the best!

 

1)  Centre for Disease Prevention and Control USA

2)http://www.gallup.com/poll/150947/Self-Reported-Weight-Nearly-Pounds-1990.aspx

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8 things I’d do if I got diagnosed with MS

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to-do-list DOING NOTHING IS NOT AN OPTION!! MS can have a very serious impact on your future quality of life. All measures you can take to stay well, have the most impact when they are done early on, and stuck to consistently. Nobody knows what causes MS; but it’s agreed that genetic susceptibility can combine with environmental factors to trigger the auto-immune confusion that causes the body to attack it’s own myelin.

As far as the disease process goes, It’s widely believed that the early inflammation causes damage, which causes later degeneration, but we now know that degeneration is also a factor right from the start. However, there is a lot you can do to combat both inflammation and degeneration, both with medical treatment and your lifestyle & nutrition. Having worked as an MS specialist nurse for about 13 years now, here’s what I’d do if I got a diagnosis of MS:

1) ADDRESS INFLAMMATION & DEGENERATION WITH DIET &LIFESTYLE. Get George Jelinek’s book ,’Overcoming MS’ and follow all the dietary and lifestyle recommendations to the letter. This involves

Plant based whole food diet                                                                                      High dose vitamin D3                                                                                                  20g omega 3 oil                                                                                                        Exercise                                                                                                              Sunshine                                                                                                                Meditation

I consider this to be a rock solid foundation for good health, whether you have MS or not. It’s also so great to keep hearing individuals stories of improvement, even with long-standing and progressive MS, following this approach, and both Jelinek’s, and more and more research on diet and disease backs up this evidence based approach. See www.overcomingms.org

2) Find out about your options re drugs. I am not going to be talking about diseases modifying treatment (‘DMT’) choices here, only broad concepts.

MS drugs aim to stop or reduce  inflammation, manifested as relapses, in the hope that this will prevent the degeneration. See the infographic in my Alemtuzemab about the relationship between safety and efficiency of the various treatments available.

An important point to consider is that some of these more effective drugs are ‘second line’ treatments, which means they are only available to you on the NHS if you have already tried the standard drugs. There are also sometimes drug trials recruiting, where you can access a drug as part of an experimental trial. (see other posts) There is a link on the MS Society website to find out what trials are ongoing and how to get involved in a trial.

MS drug treatment is a fast changing topic and you need to have a serious discussion  with your MS Nurse and/or neurologist to find out what you are eligible for, and then read round the subject and discuss to make an informed choice.

Make sure the information you use to make your decision is as objective as possible, and not coming directly from the companies making the drug. www.msdecisions.org is a decision making tool that’s been put together by the MS Trust, the MS Society, the UK MS Specialist Nurses Association and the Department of Health, so its’ as objective as you are likely to find.

Last important point: The earlier in the disease process that a drug is used, the more effective it is likely to be.

3) Some – not all – but some, people with otherwise unexplained medical conditions, have an underlying food intolerance, and you can be completely unaware of the problem. If you do have an intolerance, for example, to gluten, then every time you eat that food, you set up a chain of inflammation in the body, which can certainly exacerbate any auto immune condition.  For that reason, I, personally, would also want to identify food intolerances. Finger prick blood tests are available online from companies like York labs and Lorisian. There’s a lot of controversy about them, and they have been found sometimes to be unreliable, with a tendency to just show up with whatever you’ve eaten recently. Another way is to spend some weeks doing s ‘exclusion diet’, to see if you can find any cuplprits. Here’s one example: https://avivaromm.com/elimination-diet/ . The difficulty here is that MS is a condition with ups and downs anyway, so it’snot necessarily going to be clear.

However, in my experience, when people who have a food intolerance identify and avoid that food, they get a lot better all round, so its worth doing.

4) Gut health There’s a growing understanding about how problems with the integrity of the gut wall,  (the tight junctions that prevent the wrong molecules passing through into the bloodstream, triggering this type of food intolerance) and the right mix of bacteria in the gut, can contribute to auto-immune diseases. This is a huge topic – search ‘heal your gut’ or similar. There are various ways to do this, by avoiding food intolerances, using supplements like the protein L-glutamine, various products to kill off any overgrowth of yeasts etc ( as in step 5) and probiotics.

Then, hopefully, your exclusions don’t have to be forever.

 

5) Consider a clear out. Environmental factors combining with genetic susceptibility is what is thought to trigger MS , and as we are still unsure exactly what those environmental factors are,  there is still a lot of interest and research going on into the role of viruses etc in MS. Even if this turns out to have nothing to do with the cause of MS, any inflammatory condition will be worsened by an overload of any organisms that should not be there, whether they are yeasts, bacteria, virus, or parasites. People who are concerned that they may have an overgrowth of yeast, wrong gut bacteria, etc may want have a ‘clear out’ by doing a  3 month ‘detox’ with a strong natural detox agent. I like something called SOS-Advance, which is a colloidal suspension of strong anti bacterial, anti viral, anti parasitic plant oils like oregano, neem etc, but there are plenty of other herbal ‘de-tox’ products. Be aware, before starting any detox product, that it’s possible to feel really grotty for up to a week at first, if you have a ‘die-off’ reaction. If this happens, drink more water, rest, make your diet light and fresh, treat any constipation, and shower/bathe frequently.

6) Eat Really good Food – it’s not all about avoiding stuff-  food has so much power to affect the cells of our bodies for brain and nervous system health, so read up on a wholesome plant based diet, and ‘eat the rainbow’, especially dark green leafy veg.

7) Becoming more resilient to stress. Super important. We know that unmanaged stress causes and inflammatory cascade in the body, and there’s enough research to identify it, along with infection, as a trigger for MS relapses. There’s load of research now on the power of meditation, mindfulness, and relaxation. Personally, and especially if you struggle to fit meditation or deep relaxation into your day, I like the HeartMath technique, where you learn to synchronise your heart rate variability, and get feedback as to how you’re doing. In my clinics, I use the desktop teaching program, and send people away with the simple technique to do regularly, but you can now purchase an app version, available from itunes: https://store.heartmath.com/innerbalance

8)Read up on intermittent fasting, even if it’s just to use if and when you’re aware that you have inflammation or relapse going on.

So, TO SUMMARISE, and adding the Jelinek/Overcomingms recommendations:

AVOID:

  • saturated fat ( meat & dairy, coconut & palm oil)
  • other fats in processed food
  • unmanaged stress
  • physical inacitivty (as much as possible)
  • foods which you test intolerant to
  • smoking
  • eating too many calories for your needs

TAKE:

  • a plant-based, whole food diet
  • eating a ‘rainbow’ with special focus on dark green!
  • high dose vitamin D3, keeping blood levels around 150nmol/litre
  • 20g omega 3 – 2 dessert spoons of cold pressed flax seed/linseed oil fulfils this
  • probiotics
  • Any appropriate MS treatment drug
  • meditation/deep relaxation 30 mins daily to improve resilience to stress, or regular Heartmath technique.
  • as vigorous as possible exercise 30 mins, at least 3-4 x a week, outside if poss
  • the sun – as close to all over as poss, 10-15 minutes when possible
  • Lipoic acid 1,200mg – see this post

and take courage – many people with MS go on to live healthy lives well into old age. I would encourage you to do these actions to help you to be one of these. 🙂

Overcoming MS retreat, July 2013

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Hello! the madness of the summer is over (which I thoroughly enjoyed!) and at last I manage to blog about this amazing experience.

So in July, I attended the first UK retreat run by the Overcoming MS UK (OMS) organisation,  (now a registered UK charity), who allowed me to go so that I can hopefully help them to run workshops etc in the UK, to help people with MS understand the effects of diet and lifestyle modification on MS.george Jelinek et al, breakfast OMS meeting

From left to right, this is Linda Bloom, patron & founder of OMS UK, who has MS herself and is very well, Sandra Neate, Prof Jelinek’s wife, an emergency medicine consultant in Australia, Professor Jelinek, professor of emergency medicine and author & founder of Overcoming MS ( & very fit & well with MS), Gary McMahon , head of OMS UK, all round top bloke, with a business management background, but utterly committed to health, having helped his wife recover form serious illness using dietary & lifestyle measures, Dr Craig Hassed, an Australian GP and  medical  university lecturer, author & international speaker on mindfulness, and me.

What did I expect?

Well, I expected that I’d already know it all ( how arrogant!) …. I expected that I’d enjoy meeting the Professor and crew, but might shy away from too much socialising, not wanting to feel different as an MS nurse…. I expected I’d be bored in the evenings and took lots of work to do…. and that I might get a bit hungry on the fully vegan diet provided, and took a big loaf of bread for my bedroom… and I expected that 90% of the focus would be on diet & supplements, with a sliver of meditation thrown in for good measure….

What actually happened?

a) I didn’t know it all… & I’ll share my new understandings here,                                             b) I enjoyed meeting every person on the retreat, was inspired by the company of so many intelligent, stimulating individuals and couples who dare to think differently and think for themselves,  had a lot of fun, was never once bored, never did any work (!), and am actively staying in touch with the group via an email group because I want to!                     c) Was absolutely stuffed, because  the food was tasty, vibrant, delicious and really ‘stuck to your ribs’.                                                                                                                             d) I got my focus back through meditation, and realised how powerful the effects of even a boring daily grind of meditation that you don’t even want to do can be !!

for this, it helped having a little cell, with no TV or internet connection….

launde abbey

So, first impressions happened the evening before the retreat, when I went out for a meal with the OMS staff/trainers. Firstly, the Professor is seriously fit and healthy looking, and runs or swims daily more than I do in a week ( if not 2), and comes across as genuinely lovely, thoughtful, intelligent, educated, and kind person. He is obviously ably supported by his wife Sandra, who shares his qualities, diet & lifestyle, and took on the sessions about the structure & role of different fats.

Prof Jelinek & his wife Sandra

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During the meal, in conversation, the Professor talked about how he would like to slow down his international work running the retreats ( he does already have his full time academic medical work), and I felt honoured to hear him relate this personal anecdote, with some emotion:

He said that he had recently experienced a relaxation of the drive to always be working to get his message out there, and that it had caused him to wonder and reflect. For some reason his age suddenly became very meaningful to him, but he couldn’t work out why — until he suddenly realised that he had now passed the age that his mother had been when she died, severely affected by MS (she took her own life). And so somehow, he had ‘made it’ , and proved to himself the value of the work he’s been doing all these years.

I’m not going to re-iterate all the points of the OMS approach here, as I’ve talked about it many times, and its all available for free on http://www.overcomingMS.org , there’s the books, and also a forum on the website where people can discuss points; I’m just going to go into some of the things I hadn’t quite nailed.

We sat in a circle around the outside of a large room, or on beanbags in the middle, and there were about 40 people. Most people had come with their partner, and some on their own. Teaching was very good quality, and we had lots of time to ask questions and discuss fine points.

prof jelinek teaching UK retreatHere’s the Prof teaching, and Linda in mid leap… she & Gary had organised and were running the show, she had her new baby in attendance, and during the week was constantly jumping up and physically running, fetching, carrying, leaping over boxes & beanbags, & looking radiant throughout.

Flax seed oil – in the most recent research carried out by OMS ,taking this trumped fish oil for having reduced disease activity. The best amount and way to take it is 2 dessert spoons drizzled over food ( or used to dip bread or in salad dressing) daily, and apparently, the best tasting is from http://www.flaxfarm.co.uk  I just got some, and can confirm, it looks like sunshine and tastes… nutty but fine. Going to see if I can get a discount for Bedford MS Therapy Centre….

Meditation

I’m no stranger to meditiation, having taken it up in my 20s, however, life had started getting on top of me, and when I attended the retreat, I was pretty stressed.

I was taken aback by the serious focus on meditation – every day, we started and finished the session with a half hour mindfulness meditation, led by Craig Hassed. I also did some of my meditation again in my room on a morning. It was hard! It is hard! But it is real – it has real, measurable mental and physical health benefits, and it’s worth doing every single day. By the end of the week I felt that I had met my real self again, and I was OK. Meditation  deserves a post of its own, which I’ll do some time, but for now, here’s some links to give a taste of the sort of thing we were doing. Scroll down to guided meditations, mindfulness meditation (1,2 or 3) with Craig Hassed.

http://www.calm.auckland.ac.nz/18.html 

It’s school run time!  but to stop this being delayed any further – TO BE CONTINUED!

OMS retreat and Second paper from the HOLISM study published: omega 3s associated with markedly better health

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I’m really, really looking forward to getting away from it all ( apart from my MS learning) next week on the retreat for people with MS run by George Jelinek of Overcoming MS. Vegan food, peaceful and beautiful surroundings – just hope they have wiFi!!

Launde Abbey

The reason that I’m there, is  to learn, as OMS have asked me to help them run the one day courses which will be running in the UK, to educate people about the evidence for lifestyle measures that can help people with MS to remain well. I’m looking forward to it! As this is not an either/or choice – there’s a place for both types of medicine – I have never been afraid to stand up and promote this from the rooftops!  Going to take my yoga mat and meditation shawls….

And here’s just some of the research that OMS have been up to recently

Second paper from the HOLISM study published: omega 3s associated with markedly better healthOur research team at OMS is excited about the findings of our latest study from the HOLISM database, published online early at the International Journal of Neuroscience (http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/00207454.2013.803104). To refresh memories, this study recruited around two and a half thousand people with MS from Web 2.0 platforms like Facebook, Twitter and MS websites, from 57 countries around the globe. They completed a long survey about their lifestyles and the illness. We have been busy analysing the data ever since; the findings about one part of the lifestyle survey relating to fish and omega 3 consumption have just been published and add enormous weight to the OMS recovery program. Briefly, those consuming fish the most frequently (three or more times a week), and those taking omega 3 supplements, had better health in virtually all measured domains of disease activity, disability, and quality of life. Perhaps the most striking finding however of the research was that while people with MS taking regular fish oil supplements had 44% fewer relapses than those not taking omega 3s, those taking flaxseed oil regularly had 66% fewer relapses! This effect was independent of how frequently they were consuming fish. We have suggested flaxseed oil as the preferred omega 3 supplement in the OMS recovery program since its inception. These data provide strong support for that approach.
The take-home messages from the paper were that, in a real world setting, people with MS taking omega 3 supplements and eating fish regularly have much better health! They have less disability, fewer relapses and better quality of life. People looking to recover from MS everywhere who are incorporating these lifestyle changes into their lives can take great heart from these findings.
The full version of the paper is still not available for download from the journal website, so we have attached a pdf (above right) to enable people to read the full paper.

Get chugging back that Flax seed oil!

MS Frontiers intro and OMS newsletter

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I was proud to present this poster at the MS Frontiers conference – Fantastic findings re Flax seed oil – 49% less relapses in people with MS that took it, research by http://www.overcomingms.org just been accepted for publication.. Will post more info asap.

Also coming up – and important to know about if you have RRMS -Campath/alemtuzimab/lemtrada trials

and – interesting stuff from MS Frontiers conference

MS Nurse Miranda Olding presenting our poster at the MS Frontiers Conference

It has been a busy few weeks for Miranda Olding, MS Specialist Nurse, based at the MS Therapy Centre in Bedford. She was recently nominated by her patients for an award of ‘My MS Super Nurse, a competition run by the MS Trust. Click here to hear how Miranda describes her work with the MS Community.

With her holistic approach to patient care, she is a keen advocate of the OMS Recovery program and has represented us on a number of occasions, most recent of which was the MS Frontiers Conference at the Sofitel, Heathrow where she presented a poster on the current research work being undertaken by Professor Jelinek’s team at St. Vincent’s in Melbourne.

Photo: MS Specialist Nurse Miranda Olding presenting our research work in London

Recovering from Multiple Sclerosis: turning evidence into reality

Everyone knows about AMEX day by now, surely? Presented by Professor Jelinek and Dr Craig Hassed this day-long event will lay before you the recovery program and outline the evidence base that led Professor Jelinek to developing the program. The price includes all refreshments, a wonderful lunch and a copy of the book Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis: an evidence based guide to recovery to take home with you. The newly built AMEX Stadium, home of Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club is a wonderful venue with superb facilities. Ticket sales have been strong, and bookings have come in from as far afield as central Europe, but at the time of writing there are still some places left. Don’t leave it until the last minute. This event will not be repeated until the end of 2014 at the earliest. Tickets are obtainable from here

New OMS app for smartphones released!

The new OMS app for smartphones has been released. Download free from the App Store!

Our trusty team has been working away behind the scenes to bring you OMS on your smartphone.

Go to the App Store in iTunes or Google play if you have an android phone and use the keywords ‘overcoming multiple sclerosis’ and you will find the new OMS app, which you can download for free!

From podcasts at your fingertips, to recipes, and even a place to send your photos of the surprised expression of your neurologist when he sees how well you are doing! All there on the new OMS app….