What Diet Is Best For MS? My 9 TOP MS Diet Recommendations

you better believe that diet and nutrition matter in multiple sclerosis in this video i'm going to share with you nine recommendations for upping your game improving your diet optimizing your nutrition to live your best life with ms don't turn away because that starts right now [Music] howdy and thanks for learning about ms with me aaron boster i started this youtube channel to help my own ms clinic patients learn between visits and it's my hope that through these videos i can help you learn too today's topic is diet and nutrition an often overlooked discussion in an ms center in this video i want to share with you what i consider to be nine top tips nine recommendations of things that you can do with your diet and nutrition to up your game and live your best life despite having ms so let's jump in number one is a doozy it's a tough one but hey you clicked on the video and you want to learn so let's do this when i talk about changing your diet for ms my first recommendation is to choose real foods whole foods and hopefully single ingredient foods so let's unpack that a little bit a real food i will define for you as a food that is as close to its natural state as you can pull off it's unprocessed there's no added chemicals or additives and hopefully it's very rich in nutrients the term whole food is really a similar definition again we're talking about something that is minimally processed and minimally refined if at all hopefully it doesn't need a label because you can identify it and there should be no sugar added or no refined grains as part of that whole food a single ingredient food is what it sounds like it's a food like chicken apple asparagus and if you focus on choosing real food whole food in single ingredient food it will dramatically change 99 of what you're eating try it it will literally force you to change where and how you shop you'll learn that you can really only shop on the outside of the grocery store where things can spoil and go bad and have to be kept under refrigeration etc it will require you to go to the grocery store oftentimes more often because you're not buying heavily processed heavily refined boxed foods that can store in your pantry for years and years it's a change in the way that you approach shopping and eating and it's the very first thing i'm going to ask you to consider when you're upping your nutrition game in ms still on number one still keeping in the spirit of food choices and nutrition choices i want to share with you things that i would ask you to avoid again we're focusing on real food whole food and single ingredient food and so please avoid the following fast foods fried foods sugar laden foods heavily processed foods and importantly foods with ingredients that you can't pronounce if you abide by that and if you avoid soda pop and diet sweeteners etc it's really going to help drive you to make food choices for whole food real food and single ingredient foods try it out [Music] number two should come as no surprise to people that typically follow my channel upping your water game i talk a lot about water on this channel because it's really really important increasing your water decreases fatigue in ms now think about this ms is a disease with the most common symptom being pathologic fatigue and increasing your water intake can help that and so i would really like you to do that upping your water game does a lot of other things it can help with thinking and memory and it can help with mood two other invisible problems that are all too common in the setting of ms it can decrease spasticity it can massively help with constipation and it can decrease the frequency of urinary tract infections water is a really really good idea now ideally about 100 ounces of water a day when you think about it that way you think wow that's a lot of water and so i want to help you with a couple hacks to integrate water into your daily life i want you to drink one 20 ounce glass of water with breakfast i don't think that's asking too much then please drink a 20 ounce glass of water with lunch and a 20 ounce glass of water with dinner so basically you're tacking on a large glass of water with each of your three main meals you can do that then simply add in a glass of water between breakfast and lunch and then a glass of water between lunch and dinner that's going to get you 100 ounces right there and we're good to go now if you're not eating three regular meals we should talk about that but instead there's different ways of approaching downing so much water you could for example get a water bottle you'll know how many ounces it is and then you'll know how many times a day you need to kill it try to drink the entire water bottle before lunch fill it up one more time and try to drink it before dinner my point here is by being a little bit proactive we can plan out our water intake and really up our game a couple pro tips from a guy that's been working on upping his water game i really enjoy sparkling water doesn't have any calories but the carbonation makes me feel fuller and sometimes i'll even put it in a glass tumbler and it makes me feel like i'm having an adult beverage so that's a trick that i really like to help me get adequate water during the course of my day i also love squeezing in a little bit of lime or lemon and that gives it a fantastic flavor without adding any calories i certainly recommend avoiding sweeteners and zero calorie sweeteners those can be really tricky because they can help you crave sugar and make you end up eating stuff you're not supposed to in some weird cases they can actually spike your insulin so i would definitely avoid those last tip about water is try to drink two thirds of all the fluids you're gonna drink in the first half of your day then try to put a relative hard stop on drinking fluids after dinner you have to keep in mind please that when you drink something you make urine for the next six hours and so if you stop drinking fluids around dinner you're hopefully going to be done making urine by the time you climb into bed if on the other hand you're drinking water right up into the time when you go to sleep you risk making urine all night long and then waking up several times to go to the bathroom [Music] increase vitamin d levels we get vitamin d naturally through the sun now that's a problem because at least here in ohio we don't have the sun about seven months out of the year and when it's sunny out we're told to hide and wear sunscreen and avoid sun because of risks of cancer we make vitamin d through a chemical process when the sun hits our skin however and so living in ohio most of us run around with very very low levels of vitamin d we would like ideally for someone impacted by ms to have a vitamin d level that's pretty darn high above 50 but below 100 and when i check levels in clinic oftentimes the 25 oh vitamin d level is like 10 or 11. it's insanely low and so we have to do something to drive your vitamin d up why because it turns out that low levels of vitamin d increase the risk to develop ms in folks that are pre-puberty and if you already have ms it looks like low levels of vitamin d drive your disease faster supplementing levels of vitamin d suggest that we might be able to slow those things down and it's a really really good idea so how do we get your vitamin d level up well one way is through being in the sun turns out that if you went out near shirtless in the sun for 15 minutes soaking up the rays you would absorb about 5 000 international units of d3 which is exactly the amount that i typically am asking patients to take now going out in a halter top in february and ohio you can see the snow behind me is not going to happen and so that's unrealistic for some people but if you're fortunate enough to be in a sunny area you might grab your vitamin d that day just by going out in a halter top and absorbing some sun all right so aside from going out half naked in the sun what's another way of getting some vitamin d well you could eat foods that are high in vitamin d beef liver and cod oil are not things that i oftentimes see on my table but they're super high in vitamin d and so that's one way that you could do it there are certain fishes like salmon and swordfish and tuna that are also high in vitamin d sardines are high in vitamin d sometimes you'll buy milk that's fortified with vitamin d so there are a couple ways that you can add vitamin d into your diet naturally another way and frankly the most common recommendation that i make is to pick up vitamin d3 pills at the pharmacy it's very hard to eat enough cod oil or enough beef liver and so if you can take say 5 000 international units of d3 you're probably very much along the way why am i saying d3 instead of d2 it's my opinion that d3 is better absorbed in the human body now it's not my recommendation that you go to the pharmacy and grab some vitamin d without knowing your level and you start randomly taking the pills please don't do that what i would instead recommend is that you work with your doctor and have a blood level drawn it's a vitamin d 25 level and again i would like that level in the setting of ms to be above 50 but below 100. based on your number we can help determine how much vitamin d you need is 5000 enough do you need 10 000 do you need 50 000 weekly we can figure that out and then by checking a blood level each winter we can get a sense of if we're doing a good job number three is upping your vitamin d it's a super important part of living your best life despite having ms birthday to me happy birthday to me i'm making this video on february 6th my birthday and i would love a birthday present from you quite literally it would make my day if you would give this video a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel both of those kind gestures helps the youtube algorithm know that you dig my content and helps push it out to other people and it would be an awesome birthday present from you to me thank you gut health is not to be ignored and it's often messed up in the setting of ms many many of my patients suffer from major constipation or they have ibs where they're constipated and then have massive diarrhea it's a really big problem and it can result in not leaving the house for fear that you need to be close to a bathroom in order to combat constipation and to improve gut health along with some other health benefits i would like you to increase the fiber in your diet refined grains and white wonder bread is devoid of fiber and so we're gonna have to look for foods that are high in fiber things like eating apples pears plums and green vegetables all awesome sources of fiber if you can't get enough fiber in your diet from broccoli alone you can pick up a fiber supplement when you're looking in the i can't poop aisle of the pharmacy you're going to find a bunch of options to purchase i want you to up your fiber game and it's going to help regulate your bowels i find that people that are constipated are less constipated and people that have diarrhea have less diarrhea how's that possible it's because fiber is an indigestible solid it's like sawdust so when you add fiber and then you add water it acts as a sponge and it swells and it mixes with the stool and it makes a large bulky stool that's very easy to hold onto and it's very easy to pass if you want to live your best life without bloating without constipation without bouts of diarrhea i want you to up your fiber game gentlemen should target about 30 35 grams of fiber a day gals need about 25 grams of fiber you can do it [Music] number five is to take probiotics this really has to do with something called the microbiome so check it out our guts are populated with colonies of bacteria that line the inside of our gut and in fact there are more bacteria cells living in our bodies than human cells which is crazy to think about in the population those populations of bacteria in our gut are referred to as the microbiome it's kind of like an entire little universe of bacteria that are all in balance processing our food and helping us get nutrition out of the food etc there's a problem in the setting of ms a term called dysbiosis which is a doctor term for the populations of bacteria are jacked up they're not the right kinds now there's ongoing research today about whether adjusting that might actually help the immunology of multiple sclerosis but we're not there yet that's not prime time i'm recommending that you take probiotics to repopulate the gut flora with better behaved bacteria specifically to help your gut health and your nutrition if there are other advantages to the immune response that's awesome sauce but i don't think that science is there yet nonetheless i think that it is a best practice to add in probiotics along with fiber into your diet and it's been my experience that when my patients take probiotics their gut health markedly improves they're much less constipated they have less diarrhea in some cases and they overall feel better [Music] number six is ensuring that you have enough protein in your diet protein is the building blocks of muscle and super super important it's one of the three macro molecules that we think about in nutrition fat carbohydrates and protein you need adequate protein in your diet particularly for wound healing and if you are trying to lose weight and hold on to muscle mass body recomposition you need to make sure that you have adequate protein in your diet so that you can accomplish that goal generally speaking i want you to get about one gram of protein per kilogram of body weight per day so that's a difficult formula for an american that doesn't think in kilograms so if i translate quickly a 165 pound human weighs 75 kilos and they need 75 grams of protein a day ideally i want you to get protein from excellent healthy sources like fish chicken lean cuts of meat etc [Music] number seven is to not smoke stuff you could say well wait a second aaron we're talking about nutrition why are you talking about smoking well number one it's super duper important and very very relevant to ms and number two smoking drinking and eating are all kind of wrapped together during things that humans do and so this is as good of any of a place to talk to you about it smoking increases the risk to develop ms so someone who smokes doubles their individual risk to develop ms compared to if they didn't if you already have ms and you're smoking you risk speeding up your disease by almost 50 percent which is super scary now the good news is if you stop smoking you slow it back down obviously it's my goal to help educate you about this and then ask you to please not smoke now i said don't smoke stuff because i apply the same logic to smoking cannabis i am a medical marijuana recommender in the state of ohio but i do not recommend lighting cannabis on fire and sucking in the smoke that's super pro-inflammatory if you have trouble with smoking there's no shame in that game i want you to ask your doctor for help there are a bunch of tools tricks and tips and medicines that are super successful in 2022 to help you kick that habit if you want to live your best life despite having ms make sure to not smoke stuff and if you need help ask we want to help you [Music] number eight is to limit alcohol consumption now i am not telling you that you have to be a teetotaler and never ever have a sipa alcohol if you have ms i am telling you that we need to be cautious about the risks of alcohol first of all alcohol is a sedative hypnotic and people impacted by ms already deal with a lot of fatigue so we just have to think about that alcohol can inhibit cerebellar or coordination function it can make you kind of stumble and people impacted by ms can have difficulties with ambulation and so we want to be cautious alcohol is metabolized by your liver and most medicines are metabolized by your liver the average person with ms takes seven medicines a day and so we need to make sure that the alcohol and that the medicines aren't taxing your liver too much and i personally don't think that it's a travesty if you enjoy an alcoholic beverage every once in a while if you're drinking too much we need to talk about that and over time alcohol can be a poison to the areas of brain that i mentioned and it can add significant number of calories to your diet that you may not want alcohol in moderation in my opinion is the way to go [Music] you've made it to number nine the last recommendation in this video thank you for sticking it out this is arguably one of my most exciting recommendations because it's a new learning for me it's not about what you eat it's about when you eat i'm talking about intermittent fasting now any of you that have followed my channel in the last several months know that i have gone on an intermittent fasting journey where i aaron have lost 35 plus pounds and kept it off for many many months not by changing what i ate so much as changing when i ate i'm using intermittent fasting i've done a lot of research and it's my strong opinion that intermittent fasting is safe for people impacted by ms now of course the caveat is i always want you to talk to your doctor about what's right for you before you accept any of my recommendations but this is one that i've gotten really really excited about it breaks down like this when you eat something mostly a protein or a carbohydrate you spike your insulin and insulin is the storage hormone when your insulin levels are high you can't burn fat it's not possible the storage hormone insulin is telling your body to pack on the calories and not to burn fat so if i eat something and my insulin's high and then a little bit later i eat something else the calories i stick in my mouth have only two options i can burn them as energy at that moment or i can store them as fat now in the era of telemedicine i would wake up in the morning start drinking coffee with cream spiking my insulin then i'd go to the office and i'd sit in front of a camera for 12 hours not really moving sitting talking to people on telemedicine in scarfing down a danish or maybe eating a little snack here there i was basically spiking my insulin all day long and not moving and as i eat calories i just put them on my belly and on my butt and then i would go home at night and i would get really really hungry and i would eat eight o'clock nine o'clock 10 o'clock sometimes i would be snacking until midnight basically all day long i kept my insulin level super high i never let it come back down and i never allowed my body to burn my own fat stores if you stop eating for a period of time your body burns through the glycogen and glucose stores in about six to eight hours and after that it starts looking for other areas of energy and calories and it will start to use your fat stores what happens when you don't eat is your insulin level falls when your storage hormone level falls now you can access your fat stores i personally abide by what's called a 16-8 intermittent fasting where for 16 hours a day i don't eat and for eight hours i do i eat from noon until 8 pm and then from 8 pm until noon i don't eat and by virtue of not eating for those 16 hours i allow my insulin levels to fall and i unlock the ability to burn my own fat stores and so if i eat say 1500 calories during the day but i need 2 000. my body goes through 1500 calories of nutrition i gave it and it still needs 500 calories but it doesn't have it and so it can now access my fat stores and i burn fat now i personally lost a lot of weight i feel so much better i'm not snoring i have more energy there's a lot of good things going on and i'm excited to share those benefits with you i've made several videos about intermittent fasting on this channel and so if you're interested in the topic go back and check out some of those videos i'll throw a link up above here so that you can find it easily and you can kind of see what you think i'll share with you anecdotally talking to patients in clinic it's been really successful and i've had some great success stories where patients of mine have lost 15 20 30 pounds as well intermittent fasting has everything to do with when you eat and when you don't eat not about what you eat but it's an important aspect of diet and nutrition which i think is super applicable in ms one way that you can keep weight off and lose weight is by exercise and in the setting of ms some people have a very difficult time doing that if your legs don't work it's very hard to get your heart rate up you can't go running or jogging what have you intermittent fasting is a way of accessing your fat stores and burning fat and it doesn't involve exercise and so for example for someone who is wheelchair bound and struggling with weight i think exploring something like intermittent fasting is an awesome awesome option diet and nutrition are super important in ms and i just reviewed nine top recommendations for upping your game and living your best life by optimizing your diet and nutrition and ms i would love to know your thoughts and comments please include them in the section down below and i look forward to reading them and if you'd like to hear more about diet and exercise click the video that's on your screen right now until my next video or my next live stream or the next time i see you at the boster center for ms this is aaron boster on my birthday saying be safe and take care

Channel: Aaron Boster MD

Views: 77,793

Keywords: aaron boster md youtube, Boster Center for MS, What diet is best for MS?, BosterMS.com, aaron boster, does ms diet work, ms diet, ms nutrition, Aaron Boster Multiple Sclerosis, Multiple Sclerosis Vlog, ms treatment, multiple sclerosis symptoms, multiple sclerosis (disease or medical condition), MS info, multiple sclerosis videos youtube, multiple sclerosis treatment, boster center multiple sclerosis, multiple sclerosis, functional medicine, multiple sclerosis disorder

Id: Q8S-Uab4Dn4

Length: 21min 22sec (1282 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 14 2022