Last Updated on March 27, 2024 by Cathy
What you’re eating could be killing you. If you’re eating the typical Western diet you’re eating a diet that promotes diseases. Including heart disease, some cancers, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and autoimmune diseases. Don’t run to the drug store for a quick fix instead, run to the grocery. Why? Because Food is your best medicine.
Stop eating a diet that feeds inflammation and disease. Instead, eat a diet that fights inflammation and promotes wellness. Sounds simple enough but it can be tough depending on your willpower. The Western diet is full of hidden sugars that are addictive.
A typical Western diet includes too many overcooked and processed foods. It’s high in calories, fat, salt, and sugar. Plus, these foods contain additives, artificial colors, artificial ingredients, flavorings, and preservatives. If you don’t know what the ingredient is you shouldn’t be eating it.
Experts say breaking a sugar habit is harder than breaking a cocaine habit. Of course, I wouldn’t know since I have never taken cocaine. But, I can tell you from experience, that breaking a sugar habit is hard!
I don’t eat refined sugar and haven’t for many years. However, it’s natural sugars in the fruit I have to watch out for. Have you ever had a strong craving for a certain food? There’s a good chance it was a craving for sugar or something higher in carbohydrates. – Carbohydrates break down into sugar.
It’s like that food keeps calling your name. You keep thinking about it until you finally give in only to feel guilty later. Avoiding these foods you should notice results like less brain fog and more energy.
10 common highly addictive foods:
- Cake
- Cheese
- Cheeseburgers
- Chips
- Chocolate
- Cookies
- Ice cream
- French fries
- Pizza
- Soda
Your best option is to not keep these foods in your house.
Hidden Infections
By eating an anti-inflammatory diet, you will also stop feeding hidden infections. You may not realize it but there’s a good chance you have one or more chronic infections. These infections may be from bacteria, fungi, parasites, or viruses.
Possible hidden infections:
- Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)
- Lyme
- Mycotoxins (mold)
- Viral infection
- Yeast overgrowth (Candida albicans)
Pay attention to your body and think back to a possible link. Sometimes it’s obvious like taking too many rounds of antibiotics. Other times, it could be more difficult. I always suspected mold so my functional medicine doctor had me tested. I expected a higher level but not an extremely high level. In the image below a 5-50 is a normal high, mine is at 9,147.
Finding the root cause of your MS is key to recovering. To find your hidden infections it’s best to visit a functional medicine doctor. If money is a concern you can do a self-assessment by asking yourself these questions:
- Been bitten by a tick?
- Either currently, have or have removed amalgam fillings (silver fillings)?
- Experienced mental stress?
- Had chickenpox, measles, mumps, or mononucleosis (the kissing disease)?
- Had yeast infections?
- Have nail fungus?
- Have one or more autoimmune diseases?
- Lived or worked in a moldy building?
- Taken many rounds of antibiotics?
If you need help, contact a functional medicine doctor at ifm.org. Since times have changed, you don’t always need to see the doctor in person. Call and ask if they accept patients through Skype, Zoom, or something similar.
Fix Your Leaky Gut
A leaky gut is a condition where the gut lining becomes damaged creating openings. These openings then allow bacteria, toxins, and food to pass into the bloodstream. The immune system then reacts by creating an inflammatory response. This can lead to different forms of chronic diseases and autoimmune diseases.
If you have MS, your odds of having a leaky gut are very high. A leaky gut can leave a person with different health conditions. Not everyone is the same so you need to pay attention to what your body is telling you.
To heal your leaky gut and stop MS, you need to eat an anti-inflammatory diet. Eat foods that are natural antibiotics, antifungals, and anti-virals like garlic and healthy fats. For some people this happens pretty quickly for others like me, it can take a while, depending on how long and severe your symptoms are. However, don’t get discouraged. My heat intolerance reversed after having it for about 20 years.
Steps I Took to Heal My Gut
There’s a lot of information out there telling you how to heal your leaky gut. It may work, it may not. I worked on it for years but my face continued to break out in a rash.
Steps I took to heal my gut:
- Eat a strict anti-inflammatory diet – didn’t work
- Did a food elimination diet – didn’t work (I did find foods I was sensitive to)
- Took a food sensitivity test and removed all the foods listed (20 different foods!) – didn’t work
- Eating steamed sulfur vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, etc.) not raw – didn’t work
- Removed lectins – didn’t work
- Increased my resistance starch (green banana flour) – didn’t work
- Work on managing my stress through relaxation and breathing – didn’t work
- Took many supplements like L-glutamine, collagen, and probiotics – didn’t work
- Water fast – didn’t work
I felt like the more foods I took away from my diet, the more foods I needed to take away.
Okay, not that all these steps above didn’t work, I think they were helping but my face continued to break out in a rash. Finally, my functional medicine doctor told me to remove foods high in histamine. Finally, my face stopped breaking out in a rash!
To learn more about histamines read How Histamines Affect You
Steps to Heal Your Leaky Gut
Like I said earlier, everyone is different. First, start eating an anti-inflammatory diet then remove food sensitivities and try different herbs, and supplements. I used to take a lot of caprylic acids, coconut milk, and coconut oil for my candida. When I took my food sensitivity test it showed I was highly sensitive to coconut. That may have been part of why my face kept breaking out in a rash.
A diet high in refined sugars and low in fiber changes the gut bacterial flora. This creates inflammation in the body which can lead to many diseases including MS.
Functional medicine likes to use what they call the 4 R’s:
- Remove bad microbes, inflammatory foods, and toxins
- Repair the gut membrane
- Replenish the gut with healing foods
- Reinoculate the gut with probiotic foods like sauerkraut
NOTE: You may want to temporarily avoid fermented foods and vinegar. Mold may be present in fermented foods and vinegar which could exacerbate symptoms. – I was tested for mycotoxins (mold) and had an extremely high level.
To learn more about mycotoxins read: Are Mycotoxins Holding You Back From Healing?
Gut Bacteria and MS
Researchers discovered people with MS have more bad bacteria in their gut. In other words, they’re missing good bacteria. An unhealthy gut is now recognized as a constant issue in MS patients. With this knowledge, it’s extremely important to work on healing your gut. The key to healing your gut is knowing what caused it to begin with. You need to become a detective to find your root cause.
For me, it was many rounds of antibiotics, eating the standard American diet, and stress. This leads to many health issues. Including yeast overgrowth, mycotoxins, and a leaky gut. A leaky gut happens when the tight junctions in the gut lining begin to open. Allowing undigested food and toxins to pass the gut and into the bloodstream.
There can be many different kinds of hidden toxins including:
- Heavy metals
- Herbicides
- Mold
- Parasites
- Pesticides
- Xenoestrogens like plastic
- Yeast overgrowth (Candida)
Yeast overgrowth is common in people with MS. I’ve read two books, Healing Multiple Sclerosis and The Yeast Connection, they both talk about the connection between candida with MS. Did you know the HLA-DR gene is a risk factor of MS and is linked to fungal infections?
No one in my family ever had MS so I never thought I had a genetic factor until I took a DNA test. It showed, through my genes, I had a three times higher risk for MS. It’s no wonder I have MS and fungi infections (mycotoxins and yeast overgrowth). You can see my results in the image below.
Food Is Your Best Medicine
Everyone is different, what caused my MS isn’t going to be what caused yours. Although, I strongly recommend eating an anti-inflammatory diet that’s lower in carbohydrates. This will stop infections like Candida, Lyme disease, mycotoxins, and small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) from growing.
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Resources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5650687/
Photos courtesy of: pexels.com, picjumbo.com, pixabay.com, unsplash.com and storyblocks.com.
Food Is Your Best Medicine
