Vitamin D Supplement 'Halves the Risks of MS'
by Celia Hall

Women who take vitamin D as a food supplement have their risk of developing multiple sclerosis cut by nearly half compared with women who take no supplements, researchers said yesterday.

The study from America lends weight to other research into the "sunshine vitamin" and MS. This has suggested that people living closer to the equator are at less risk compared to those living at higher latitudes.

Kassandra Munger, of Harvard School of Public Health, said in the journal of the American Academy of Neurology that women who took high levels of vitamin D from food and from a vitamin pill had a reduced risk.

She found that vitamin D derived from food alone did not have the same effect.

The analysis of details of nearly 180,000 women detected 173 cases of MS over 20 years. Women who took more than 400 IU (international units) a day in the form of multi-vitamin supplements had their risk reduced by 40 per cent.

"These results need to be confirmed with additional research but it's exciting to think that something as simple as taking a multi-vitamin could reduce your risk of developing MS," Miss Munger said. She added that as the vitamin D was taken in a multi-vitamin tablet it was hard to isolate the effects of vitamin D from the potential benefit of other vitamins.

Last summer the British Medical Journal reported that higher exposure to sunshine - which creates vitamin D in the body - reduced the risk of MS. It is said that children aged six to 15 would need up to three hours of sun a day during the summer to benefit.
The Daily Telegraph, 13th January 2004

Multiple Sclerosis
Extracted from The ABC's of Disease by Phillip Day

Profile
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a condition arising out of the immune system apparently destroying the myelin sheathing which surrounds nerve tissue in the brain and spinal cord, which makes up the central nervous system (CNS). Lesions or patches of damage occur where the fatty myelin sheathing protecting these nerves has been damaged. Nerve function is thus severely disrupted, resulting in obvious signs of motor dysfunction presenting a whole spectrum of symptoms. No two cases of MS are exactly the same. The damage and resultant effects are as unique to each patient as their fingerprints.

The disease is almost always restricted to young and middle-aged adults, with an approximate 60%/40% spread across females and males respectively. The geographical spread of incidence is also quite telling with MS, with the disease more prevalent in northern latitudes, with 50-100 cases per 100,000, compared with 5-10 per 100,000 in the tropics. The exception to this spread is Japan, where the disease is rare. The Faeroe Islands (between Britain and Norway) had never experienced any signs of multiple sclerosis until the British Army landed there during World War 2 with all its supplies to set up a garrison.

Symptoms
Early symptoms include clumsiness, weakness, heaviness, tingling and electrical sensations, blurring of the vision, haziness, eyeball pain, sensation of drunkenness, incontinence, numbness, loss of sexual function. More severe symptoms include shaky movements of the limbs (ataxia), speech impediment problems (dysarthria), involuntary rapid eye movements and other motor coordination problems. 'Attacks' of symptoms occur usually followed by periods of remission.

MS symptoms vary in intensity and duration, depending on which of the many different manifestations of the disease the patient has.

Causes
The cause(s) of MS are officially unknown, but, as with the disease-spread information above, tantalising clues lead us to zero in on the chief areas of action. MS is on the increase, medicine bringing a vast array of drugs (steroids, etc.) to bear with very limited success on what is generally regarded in many cases as a degenerative 'auto-immune disease' - that is, that the patient's immune system has apparently been triggered to attack and destroy key cells in the body (see also Diabetes and Arthritis).

If we review the following key factors about MS, we can begin to build a profile of who's at risk… and where:

· The disease mostly occurs in young to middle-aged adults
· It marginally favours women
· It is more prevalent in the northern latitudes
· Japan is an exception
· It does not occur in non-industrialised, agrarian societies
· It appears as though the immune system has acted dysfunctionally to destroy key cells

From this short summary, we may surmise that:
· Sunlight, enzymes and vitamin D appear to play a role in avoiding MS
· There's something in the Japanese diet and lifestyle that appears to restrict the deployment of MS
· MS appears to be a disease of industrialisation, wherein foreign proteins (antigens) have challenged the immune system
· The immune system, which, by the way, does not act dysfunctionally (there's always a good, underlying reason why it does what it does), has been given a key motivation to attack myelin cells in addition to the invaders

Commentary
Many hypotheses have been offered to explain how MS is caused: viral infections, food intolerances, leaky gut, all of which may provoke the immune system into reacting in a 'dysfunctional' way to attack specific cells - in this case, myelin. But what precisely is the mechanism that may cause the immune system to do such an obscure thing? The answer may well be 'molecular mimicry.'

Molecular Mimicry
…Molecular mimicry is a theory, under research since 1985, whereby invading foreign proteins (antigens) appear to have a very similar amino acid chain make-up to certain healthy cells in the body, thus 'fooling' the immune system into destroying not just the invading protein, but also the healthy cells appearing to be very similar to it. Important to note: most of the evidence so far researched on MS (which, by the way, is considerable) does show that the immune system has wreaked the havoc on the myelin sheathing.

Problems with the immune system will occur when healthy proteins existing in a person's body (i.e. myelin basic protein) correspond very closely to trouble-making proteins that make up bacteria, fungi, yeasts, etc. One MS site explains the proposed mechanism this way:

"To understand how molecular mimicry works in the induction of autoimmunity, one must understand the basic mechanisms of an immune response to a foreign invader in the body. The immune system recognises a part of the protein portion of the invader. It does this with T cells which have receptors which bind to short segments (up to 10 amino acids) of a foreign protein. It is helped in this task by so-called antigen presenting cells such as macrophages.

A macrophage will engulf a foreign invader (e.g. a bacteria or food particle) and break it down into fragments. A special molecule in the macrophage then carries a protein fragment (peptide) to the surface of the cell and 'presents' it to the millions of circulating T cells. A T cell which has a matching receptor locks onto the presented protein fragment. The T cell then becomes activated and stimulates other portions of the immune system to begin an immune response against all proteins which contain a similar-looking amino acid string. The details of what constitutes a similar-looking string are beyond this summary, but suffice to say it has been found that a variety of similar, yet somewhat different strings, can be recognised by the same T cell."

Dr Roy Swank
Dr Roy Swank, Professor of Neurology at the University of Oregon Medical School, has done much research into MS. He found that diets heavy in saturated fats are implicated in those exhibiting MS symptoms. The patient's ability to neutralise oxidation (free-radical components) in their body was also seen to be severely compromised. Swank proposed a diet for MS sufferers, which is remarkably similar to the Food For Thought and Anti-Candida regimens discussed in this book. Swank found that this diet retarded the disease process and reduced the number and severity of attacks.

Also up for discussion is whether the chicken comes before the egg. Do food intolerances cause MS, or are food intolerances the result of an MS-compromised immune system? Do fungi provoke the immune system into destroying not only the fungi, but healthy myelin cells also, which may have a similar amino acid signature to the fungi?

Medicine uses immune-suppressing drugs in the belief that MS is the result of a dysfunctional immune system and therefore, by reducing the effectiveness of the immune system, one may retard the spread of the illness. This is what I term a 'scorched earth' policy, where the only cunning plan you have come up with to halt the advance of the enemy is to burn and destroy all the land in the path of his advance in the hope that you will starve him into submission. Not such a great strategy, in my humble opinion.

Critters
What we do know from testimonies and other reports on successful treatment of MS is that the disease, if caught early enough, may be halted and even reversed using a combination of lifestyle and dietary factors outlined below.

Gerald Green is a herbalist who lives in Sussex, England. His grandfather was Nobel laureate Professor Fritz Huber, a leading German scientist who died in the mid-1930's. An elderly gentleman experienced in healthcare, Gerald submitted some of his MS case histories to me, with the permission of his patients, which showed the benefits of an anti-Candida regimen, along with sensible supplementation and changes in lifestyle.

Gerald Green works on the premise that ALL MS patients have a microbe problem, and that it is pointless trying to combat the disease unless you addressed the underlying causes first. He suggests patients adopt his strict anti-Candida diet. This diet, I had found, was cropping up in various permutations in highly successful cancer treatments all over the world, from the Gerson Therapy pioneered by the famous Dr Max G, through to clinics in Mexico and the UK across to physicians prescribing it in one form or another to their patients as far away as the Philippines and New Zealand. The diet itself may also explain why Japan escapes the full brunt of MS, unlike other industrialised nations of comparable latitude. Many Japanese citizens still adhere to their national, alkalising diet of rice, vegetables and lots of fish, although, it must be said, the fast-food monster has now taken its grim hold on those islands, with unfortunate, if predictable consequences for the future.

It is my conclusion that fungi are suspected of playing the key, primary role in this disease and may well contain the amino acid chains mimicked, in which case the immune system may be correctly attacking fungal infestation while its attack template is also destroying healthy cells in the body - in this case, myelin sheathing cells intrinsic to the successful operation of the central nervous system.

Clearly not everyone, who has overgrowths of yeasts/fungi/ parasites, is getting MS. The disease in my view must have a certain number of factors working synergistically to bring on the problem. The following may be such a profile:

· A western, industrialised diet rich in refined, processed sugars and grains - aspartame may be an implicator
· A diet low in polyunsaturated fatty acids
· Lack of regular exercise
· Low intakes of Vitamin D and other vital nutrients
· Other, non-defined stressors predominant in young to middle-aged adults
· Leaky gut syndrome brought on by yeast/fungal damage to the gut lining, thus allowing MS-triggering food/foreign proteins to gain access to the bloodstream via a permeable intestinal lining
· The immune system creates templates for the invading proteins which inadvertently take out the healthy myelin cells also
· Drugs prescribed may weaken the immune system, giving the appearance of retarding the disease
· Halting the disease at source will therefore necessitate addressing the diet, lifestyle and fungal issues of the patient

Take action
An MS sufferer will usually have other, sometimes minor symptoms, which may not seem connected to their disease, i.e. acid reflux, athlete's foot, jock itch, thrush, digestion problems, bowel gas, etc. Patients should also be aware of foods to which they are sensitive, which should be eliminated. Ideally a diary should be kept keeping track of problem foods and any observable effects of eliminating them from the diet. The following will be of benefit to the multiple sclerosis sufferer:

· DIET: COMMENCE THE ANTI-CANDIDA DIETARY REGIMEN, ensuring that the Foods to avoid and supplementation are rigorously adhered to
· DIET: See Foods to avoid section of THE FOOD FOR THOUGHT LIFESTYLE REGIMEN
· DIET: Avoid all animal foods, except cold-caught oily fish (no farmed fish!), which should be consumed daily (salmon, mackerel, herring, etc.). Normal protein intakes
· RESTORING NUTRIENT BALANCE: COMMENCE THE BASIC SUPPLEMENT PROGRAM, ensuring:
· ANTI-CANDIDA/FUNGAL SUPPLEMENTATION, including wormwood, Essiac, fennel, peppermint tea, etc. Physician may also prescribe anti-fungal, anti-mycotoxic drugs in addition to the above, as directed
· Vitamin D, 400 IU per day, or as directed
· Vitamin E, 800 IU per day
· Flaxseed oil, 1 tbsp per day
· Brain/CNS supplementation (ideally 'Ingenious' - see A Guide to Nutritional Supplements)
· Pancreatic enzyme supplementation, two capsules taken three times daily away from food
· Selenium, 200-400 mcg per day
· Vitamin B12 supplementation, as directed by your physician
· Vitamin C complex (ascorbates plus bioflavonoids), 4-5 g, twice per day (in the event of diarrhoea indicating threshold level has been exceeded, reduce intake to just under threshold level)
· Gingko biloba, as directed
· Hawaiian Noni Juice, as directed
· TIP: Those with mild MS symptoms should exercise in a gym four times a week both with weights and on a stationary cycle or 'Stairmaster' with arm movement extensions. Those with more severe forms of the disease should try assisted movement exercises and massage to improve comfort and circulation
· TIP: This regimen is a long-term lifestyle change and, once again, must be adhered to strictly

© Copyright 2004 Phillip Day

Further Resources:
The ABC's of Disease by Phillip Day

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