This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Knowledge & Support Community

oo

I respect your obvious research and conclusion. But, Lyon, please consider the variable of diet, too. Diets improve and have more carbohydrates along with a people's development and increased affluence. Maybe the menu changed in the Faroe Islands with the arrival of the British soldiers.

ya i just wrote a paper that involved a lot of reading about what british colonization had on the nutrition of indigenous australians. it didn't give them "ms", but it wasn't good.

i think the ideas about the blips in the distribution of "ms" based on UV exposure are discussed in the literature based on highly protective diets including lots of fish and sea veg, or higher altitudes.

and finally, i will restate that there must be a variety of subsets and no one thing has to explain all scenarios. we can all be right, for different groups of people.

oo

Reading all of this it occurs to me that the theories of helminths and diet need not be mutually exclusive- whatever impact these things are having on ms their mechanics all start in the digestive system.
Muu

ya same thing with the acidophilus

Bob,

I haven't read up much on the Faroe Island 'outbreak' but I know that the Scots have one of the (if not the) highest MS rates in the world and the theory is that they have the genetic susceptibility. I'm not big on the food theory - although diets may have some effect e.g. Vit D consumption. It strikes me that soldiers going to a fairlyy isolated island are going to be bringing with them infections of some sort of another and passing these to the locals. Attached is an old favourite of mine. Dr Ann Cross - a neurologist specialising in MS. The key point is:

When three of her classmates during medical training developed the debilitating and then-untreatable neurological disease multiple sclerosis (MS)

<shortened url>

Given that the chance of getting MS is say, 1 in 800, I cannot believe that Dr Cross had 2,400 classmates. Or that the three suddenly started eating different food.

One of the theories behind fatigue is that it is the body constantly trying to fight off the infection in the CNS.

I also posted after my attendance at the EBV / MS seminar a case of an 'outbreak' of MS at a school in Denmark (following a bout of Mono / Glandular Fever).

There is also my own case - where two of three colleagues working in the same roon were dx with MS within 12 months of each other (and no Bob, I didn't kiss him).

There is also the case of immigrants to Canada (one from Iran who posts on this site) who have been dx with MS after coming from so-called low-risk countries. I don't know what Canadians eat (Moose heads or whatever), but I cannot believe that diet can cause outbreaks.

Food may well help (giving some protection / damepning down the inflammation) but I still think that an infectious agent combined with genetic susceptibility, is the root of the problem.

Ian

i am not throwing my hat in the ring in any way, I just happen to come accross this link, and havent read it myself, but thought it may be of some interest to someone. Its past my bedtime.

August 2006
Genetics and hereditary aspects of MS

Just to throw one more monkey wrench into the mix...the geographic spread of MS parallels the geographic spread of Lyme Disease.