Our Glasgow colleague Dr Sarah Martin discusses different diets that claim to improve MS symptoms in this talk for the people with MS and their families on the Western Isles.
In the talk, Sarah outlines the difficulty of ascertaining how effective a diet is. There is a short video on the importance of Vitamin D, then Sarah shows how important exercise is for the body, especially for people with MS.
Watch Sarah’s talk on nutrition and exercise for people with MS.
Watch our other videos on our Youtube channel and subscribe to keep up to date.
The talk is part of a trip by the Barts-MS and Glasgow teams up to Stornoway, on the Isle of Lewis, in April 2018. In a change from the traditional research days held in London, Barts-MS teamed up with the Glasgow neurology team to present two days of talks: a day of talks to healthcare professionals on the island; and a day of talks to patients and their families. There are no neurologists on the islands and patients have to fly to Glasgow. Yet rates of MS are some of the highest in the world. The teams wanted to help healthcare professionals to more effectively care for their patients with MS, and to empower the patients and their families so they can self-monitor and better control their care and treatment. Read about our trip to Stornoway.
Brilliant talk – much appreciated. There is lots of talk about diet cures in MS and I completely agree about the problems of doing good science for diets; Compliance, adherence and confounding factors. I've now been on an extreme diet in response to PPMS for abtou 3 years but no miracles despite dedicated compliance and adherence so think the specialist MS diets are hyperbole. My diet has made me feel better in myself, has let me attain a stable and healthy weight without problems so I'm not makign it harder on myself, and my fatigue levels improved rapidly. Would I return to normal food (i.e. give in to occasional burger and chip cravings) – no. But it would be nice to be able to go out and eat once in a while.
Finally, I find the sunshine graphs in relation to vitamin D – yes, this is the underlying control – but most people spend their time inside so don't get even a proportion of that.
Loved the 'haribo' style vitamin D video – great stuff.