Some people feel specialist diets make a difference to how they feel, perhaps by reducing relapse rate or improving their overall quality of life; others don’t feel this way. At the moment, there isn’t any conclusive evidence to suggest they are effective.
Check out any new diet with a dietician or your doctor to make sure you’re not missing out on any essential vitamins or nutrients.
The ‘Swank Diet’ is perhaps the best known diet associated with MS. It increases the amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids eaten and reduces the amount of saturated fats. Saturated fat is cut to 15 grams or less per day and, as well as recommending fish, the diet adds vegetable oil and cod-liver oil every day.
The Swank Diet is named after Dr Roy Swank, who developed the diet in the 1940s. The largest research trial of his diet had a number of shortcomings and research has not shown defiinite benefiits from this particular regime. However, following this or a similar diet would not generally be considered bad for health.
Cutting down on meat and dairy foods to reduce saturated fats might leave a shortfall in protein , so it’s important to find alternative sources such as fish, beans and pulses.
Cod-liver oil has a blood-thinning effect and should be taken with caution if you take aspirin, anti-coagulant medications (for example, warfarin) or have a bleeding disorder.
If you are diabetic you should also speak to your doctor before taking cod-liver oil. This diet can be low in energy and unless care is taken to maintain energy intake, it may not be suitable if you have high energy needs or are underweight.
The Best Bet diet recommends avoiding several different food types, including all dairy, grains and red meat. Fish, chicken and turkey are recommended for protein. It also recommends having allergy tests to discover other foods to be avoided and includes a list of 18 recommended supplements.
Currently, research doesn’t suggest that there are benefits for MS from taking large numbers of supplements or from cutting out any of these food types completely. It’s also worth remembering that taking supplements can be expensive.
Like the Swank Diet, this diet can also be low in energy so care should be taken if you have a high energy need or are underweight.
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