How Terry Wahls defeated MS without drugs

How Terry Wahls defeated MS

without drugs

Terry Wahls, M.D's practical guide to managing MS and other autoimmune disorders, in which she shares the remarkable story of her transformation from a zero-gravity wheelchair to biking every day, despite her progressive MS, and outlines the program she developed using the Wahls Paleo Diet and more, inspired by functional medicine and Paleo diet principles, currently the subject of an ongoing clinical trial. The book has been sold to Avery (Penguin). Projected publication date: 2014.


Here are three simple food rules to follow to ensure you will have enough building blocks on hand for optimal function of your brain and reduced risk of excessive inflammation.
Eat 9 cups of vegetables and fruit (3 green, 3 sulfur, 3 color) to ensure you have enough B vitamins, minerals (sulfur, iodine, magnesium), antioxidants, and essential fats through food (greens, seafood, grass fed meat, game, wild fish, flax, walnuts)
Reduce food allergy risk (go gluten-free and dairy-free)
Eat organic, locally grown foods and grow more of your own
Tips to eat the Wahls Way
Focus on greens, in smoothies, salads, chips, soups and stews.
Steam kale 30 seconds to cut the bitterness and use as a wrap for meat, chicken salad or tuna salad.
Make chicken nachos: cover corn chips with finely chopped kale, onions, and tomatoes. Top with vegan (gluten-free, dairy-free and soy-free) imitation cheese shreds. Broil.
Mix kale with other leaf lettuce for salads.
Marinate kale in lime juice or vinegar and sea salt for 30 minutes to overnight to cut the bitterness and soften.
Add grated fresh ginger to kale salads to cut the bitterness.
For green smoothies, use this basic recipe: 1 cup greens, 2 cups fruit or juice, 1-2 cups ice. Be mindful of the colors! If you mix greens and purples you will end up with a brown smoothie, which may be less appealing.
Rotate through different greens, such as kale, spinach, lettuce, beet greens, mustard greens, and parsley so that you don’t eat just one kind of green.
Kale chips

Kale is packed with vitamins and minerals and is very inexpensive for the nutrition contained within. Chips are a great way to enjoy kale -- even your teenagers will enjoy.
1 bunch kale (remove stems – save for smoothies)
1-2 tsp sea salt, 1 tbsp vinegar, 1-2 tsp black pepper, ½ tsp cayenne pepper
Mix seasoning with kale (it will shrink by 50%)
Add 1 to 2 tbsp walnut oil and ½ cup nutritional yeast to coat leaves
Lay leaves on dehydrator tray and dehydrate at 95 degrees overnight or bake in the oven at 250 to 300 degrees until crispy, checking every 15 minutes till crunchy.
Beet Smoothie

Beets are packed with vitamins and minerals and are very inexpensive for the nutrition contained within them. Blend the following for a refreshing smoothie.
1/2 beet (sliced or chopped)
1-2 cups orange juice
1 apple
1 cup water or iced tea
1 cup ice
Fresh ginger to taste

About Terry

She is clinical professor of medicine at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine in Iowa City, Iowa, U.S.A., where I teach internal medicine residents in their primary care clinics. I also do clinical research and have published over 60 peer-reviewed scientific abstracts, posters, and papers.

In addition to being a doctor, I am also a patient with a chronic, progressive disease. I was diagnosed with relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis in 2000, around the time I began working at the university. By 2003 I had transitioned to secondary progressive multiple sclerosis. I underwent chemotherapy in an attempt to slow the disease and began using a tilt-recline wheelchair because of weakness in my back muscles. It was clear: eventually I would become bedridden by my disease. I wanted to forestall that fate as long as possible.

Because of my academic medical training, I knew that research in animal models of disease is often 20 or 30 years ahead of clinical practice. Hoping to find something to arrest my descent into becoming bedridden, I used PubMed.gov to search scientific articles about the latest multiple sclerosis research. Night after night, I relearned biochemistry, cellular physiology, and neuroimmunology to understand the articles. Unfortunately, most of the studies were testing drugs that were years away from FDA approval. Then it occurred to me to search for vitamins and supplements that helped any kind of progressive brain disorder. Slowly I created a list of nutrients important to brain health and began taking them as supplements. The steepness of my decline slowed, for which I was grateful, but I still was declining.

In the summer of 2007, I discovered Functional Medicine, an organization devoted to helping clinicians use the latest scientific discoveries to take better care of those with complex chronic diseases. As a result I developed a longer list of vitamins and supplements that were good for my brain. Then I had an important epiphany. What if I redesigned my diet so that I was getting those important brain nutrients not from supplements but from the foods I ate? I used what I had learned from the medical literature, Functional Medicine, and my knowledge of the Hunter-Gatherer diet—the most nutritious of any diet—to create my new food plan, the Wahls Diet™. At that time, I also learned about neuromuscular electrical stimulation and convinced my physical therapist to give me a test session. It hurt a lot, but I also felt euphoric when it was finished, likely because of the endorphins my body released in response to the electrical stimulation. In December 2007, I began the Wahls Diet along with a program of progressive exercise, electrical stimulation, and daily meditation. The results stunned my physician, my family, and me: within a year, I was able to walk through the hospital without a cane and even complete an 18-mile bicycle tour.