Multiple Sclerosis
Multiple SclerosisIn multiple sclerosis (literally, "many scars"), the immune system acts like a troublemaking mouse living in the walls of your home. For reasons that are unknown, the immune system will attack various spots on the covering of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, like a mindless mouse chewing away at the vinyl coating on electrical wire.
When the fatty material that normally protects nerve endings (called myelin) is damaged or completely worn away, nerve signals sputter and sometimes go dead. Depending on where the random damage occurs, multiple sclerosis (MS) can lead to various symptoms, including blurred vision, fatigue, loss of movement, memory problems, numbness, and trouble with bowel, bladder, and sexual functions.
The standard medical approach is to give a person with MS drugs that suppress the over-revved immune system. According to some experts, however, taking certain supplements in addition to medication, under the supervision of a doctor using traditional medical therapies, may help naturally regulate a self-destructive immune response. None of these supplements promises to provide a cure, but in some cases, they seem to help control the symptoms of MS. Quite possibly, they can also help heal damaged and inflamed myelin.
Fatty Acids and Vitamin E: Truly Essential Oils
The most important nutritional strategy for dealing with MS is to get enough of the right fats in your diet while avoiding the wrong ones, says David Perlmutter, M.D., a neurologist in Naples, Florida, and author of Lifeguide. "This is critical in any neurological problem," he says.
Our bodies use essential fatty acids—omega-3 and omega-6—to create a trio of influential chemicals called prostaglandins. Prostaglandin 1 and prostaglandin 3 calm down the immune system. Prostaglandin 2 is more activating: It stimulates cells called lymphocytes to send up an immune response.
Normally, harmony rules in this process of creating and balancing prostaglandins. Prostaglandins 1 and 3 keep prostaglandin 2 in check. In MS, lymphocytes get too strong a message from prostaglandin 2 and react by launching attacks on the body’s own nerve tissue.
From our understanding of biochemistry, it appears that you can partially control an overactive immune system by helping your body generate more of the "good" prostaglandins—numbers 1 and 3, the kind that calm down the system, Dr. Perlmutter believes. To do that, you need to start with the the essential fatty acids. Prostaglandin 1 comes from the omega-6’s, which are found in evening primrose oil and borage oil. Prostaglandin 3 is made from the omega-3’s, which are present in fish oil and flaxseed oil.
You can downplay the inflammatory prostaglandin 2 by avoiding saturated fat and cholesterol in your daily diet, says Dr. Perlmutter. He recommends sticking to a low-fat diet overall, so you get less than 18 percent of your calories from fat. This means that if your average daily diet provides about 2,000 calories, you should get about 40 grams of fat a day. With prostaglandin 2 discouraged by this low-fat diet, you can help the supplemental omega-3’s and omega-6’s do their job better. "That way, the less acceptable, less helpful fats won’t be competing for absorption with the quality essential fatty acids," says Dr. Perlmutter.
By controlling this inflammation, you may be able to reduce the severity of MS, since it is an inflammatory condition.
Dr. Perlmutter suggests taking 2,000 milligrams of evening primrose or borage oil along with 400 to 500 milligrams of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and 300 to 400 milligrams of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) from fish oil each day.
When supplementing with essential fatty acids, it’s important to include vitamin E, says Dr. Perlmutter. As part of your healthy oil regimen, he recommends 800 international units (IU) once a day of the vitamin E supplement that’s labeled d-alpha tocopherol.
B12 Prevents Breakdown
Vitamin B12 has been used by some doctors to treat patients with MS. Although the symptoms of B12 deficiency mimic those of MS, the amount of the vitamin used to treat MS is far greater than the amount required simply to correct a deficiency.
The question, however, is how to take it and how much to take. Dr. Perlmutter believes that injections are necessary. "In order to achieve therapeutic blood levels, our patients are trained to self-administer 1,000 micrograms once a week," he says.
But injections might not be the only way. At least one other expert, however, says that you can get benefits from taking the supplement in pill or capsule form. Carl Germano, R.D., a registered/certified nutritionist in New York City and co-author of The Brain Wellness Plan, recommends 1,000 micrograms of B12 taken sublingually (under the tongue) once a day.
The Daily Value for B12 is just 6 micrograms a day—hardly one-half of 1 percent of these megadoses. Vitamin B12 supplements are considered very safe, Germano says. If you take amounts that are more than your system can handle, the excess is simply excreted in your urine.
Vitamin D: The Key to Prevention?
It has long been observed that MS has a strange affinity for higher latitudes, in both the northern and southern hemispheres. In the United States, people living in the north have much higher rates of the disease than those who are closer to the sunbelt.
Several studies show evidence that sun exposure might have a protective effect against the disease. The question is, Why? What is it about that big bright ball in the sky that seems to ward off an autoimmune disease like MS?
Researchers speculate that vitamin D may be the mysterious substance affecting MS risk. When skin is exposed to sunlight, the body is able to synthesize its own vitamin D. Living in a place without enough sunshine—in a far northern clime or a smog-filled city—may make it harder to get enough vitamin D from the sun alone.
The most interesting vitamin D studies involve a protein that causes a deadly, MS-like disease in mice. In one case, mice that were given high doses of vitamin D after being injected with the protein were able to resist developing the paralyzing disease.
In another test, mice that already had the MS-type disease were either injected with vitamin D or left untreated. The treated mice showed hardly any disease progression, while the untreated mice went on to become completely paralyzed. Researchers speculate that the vitamin may work by regulating immune function.
"I think vitamin D is worthy of further study for autoimmune disease," says Jay Lombard, M.D., assistant clinical professor of neurology at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City and co-author (with Germano) of The Brain Wellness Plan. From what he’s observed, says Dr. Lombard, vitamin D definitely can suppress an overactive immune system. Since that overactivity is precisely the problem when someone has MS, he sees an interesting connection.
Some Options in D
More research is needed to say whether vitamin D can actually prevent or stall MS progression in humans. Moreover, we don’t know how much vitamin D would be needed to be most effective.
This vitamin is important for other reasons, however. Optimal amounts of vitamin D help make and maintain bone and may also benefit other parts of the body, including the skin and the reproductive organs.
The recommended daily amounts are 200 international units (IU) for people ages 31 to 50, 400 IU for people ages 51 to 70, and 600 IU for those over 70. The safe upper limit for vitamin D is 2,000 IU per day, but don’t take this much or more without your doctor’s okay.
For an additional source of vitamin D, you might consider cod-liver oil, says Alan Gaby, M.D., professor of nutrition at Bastyr University in Bothell, Washington. Anyone with MS is really getting two benefits from one source with this oil, since it has good amounts of vitamin D and is also recommended because of its fatty acid content.