Fasting improves multiple sclerosis symptoms

Washington: You can ease your Multiple Sclerosis ( MS) symptoms with fasting, finds a study. MS is a long- lasting disease that can affect your brain, spinal cord and optic nerves in your eyes. “People hear these miraculous stories about patients recovering the ability to walk after they started on this diet or that, and everyone wants to believe it,” said Laura Piccio. “All we have right now are anecdotes. The fact is that diet may indeed help with MS symptoms, but the studies haven't been done.” That’s why Piccio has put one dietary intervention to the test. She has launched a trial to evaluate whether drastically cutting calories twice a week can change the body's immune environment and the gut microbiome, and potentially change the course of the disease. The study is rooted in her own research that shows that fasting can reduce MSlike symptoms in mice. Piccio and colleagues are recruiting patients with relapsing- remitting MS for a 12- week study. Half will stay on their usual Western- style diet seven days a week, while the other half will maintain such a diet five days a week but limit themselves to 500 calories of vegetables the remaining two days. The trial is based on findings from a mouse study by Piccio and Yanjiao Zhou, MD, PhD — an assistant professor at the University of Connecticut who studies microbiomebased therapeutics — published earlier this month. In the study, mice were either allowed to eat freely or fed every other day for four weeks before receiving an immunization to trigger MS- like symptoms. Both groups of mice then continued on their same diets for another seven weeks. The mice that fasted every other day were less likely to develop signs of neuro damage. — ANI