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Looking at the Chinese as a population has been very useful when studying chronic illnesses, including MS.

According to Multiple Sclerosis International, the prevalence of MS in China is between one and 50 for every 100,000 people. The situation, however, changes when looking at immigrants who have come to Canada from countries where the exposure to the sun is different.

Canadians of Chinese origin were 10 times more likely to have MS than people in China , Savoie said. "Some of them have more severe MS than Canadian counterparts of Caucasian origin and that may tell us something about the fact that when you move across the globe, you're reacting, in fact, to these changes in the environment, including changes in exposure to vitamin D."

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Vitamin D is obviously a very important component in this discussion, and Canada is at a northern latitude compared to China. But the Chinese are also have problems with vitamin D deficiencies in their own country--

Subclinical vitamin D deficiency was widespread among Beijing adolescent girls in winter. Low plasma 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations in summer, low calcium intake, and low plasma calcium concentrations in winter were the main risk factors for vitamin D deficiency in winter.

http://www.ajcn.org/content/74/4/494.short

What else changes for Chinese people who move to Canada? What other factors are new to them? The western diet.

This has been studied in relationship to the endothelium and heart disease by Dr. T. Colin Campbell.

Six years ago a small Texas publisher released an obscure book written by a father-son research team. The work, based on a series of studies conducted in rural China and Taiwan, challenged the conventional wisdom about health and nutrition by espousing the benefits of a plant-based diet.

T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D.
To everyone’s surprise, the book, called “The China Study,” has since sold 500,000 copies, making it one of the country’s best-selling nutrition titles. The book focuses on the knowledge gained from the China Study, a 20-year partnership of Cornell University, Oxford University and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine that showed high consumption of animal-based foods is associated with more chronic disease, while those who ate primarily a plant-based diet were the healthiest.

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cheer

cheerleader wrote:
Canadians of Chinese origin were 10 times more likely to have MS than people in China

Hi Cheer. Be careful with that sentence. They say "to have" and not to develop, and the study speaks about prevalence and not incidence.

If we intend to infere the causes of the disease we should use "incidence", not prevalence. Prevalence numbers account for the survival of the patients. The difference is too big, but maybe part of these numbers just means that chinese patients in Canada live longer than patients in China.

frodo--
just to clarify, you believe that the new cases of MS from one year divided against population, or the incidence number, is more important than the prevelance, or the combination of old and new cases? OK, point made. But I didn't make this comparison, MS International did.

I understand the difference between prevalence and incidence....and I believe that this quote from an interview with Yves Savoie was referring to prevalence in both instances. Most studies out of China are prevalence, not incidence....in fact, if you can find a study of MS in China based on incidence, please post it. I could not.

The larger point is, if you live in Canada and you are Chinese, you are 10 times more likely to have MS than if you are Chinese and live in China. Maybe it's due to lifespan, maybe it's due to better diagnostics and medicine in Canada. I don't know...but 10 times is a pretty sizeable difference. And should be researched further...
cheer

OK...found incidence of MS in China for the year 2008 at this site.
http://www.atlasofms.org/query.aspx
It has epidemolgical studies for many countries for a variety of years.
The incidence of MS is .95 per 100,000 in China for 2008.

cheer

Dental work.

Our dear friends in the Orient are famous for their food.

With one glaring exception .

From personal experience , Mr.Success has not found much in the way of
sweet cookies , cakes , and other deserts as his good friends from the East ........ seem to avoid SUGAR in their dessert creations ........

The North American diet is very much sugar based.

Those that migrate to new lands .... no doubt partake .

As we know ........ sugar causes cavity's in teeth.

China still is a very rural and poor land for millions of people.

I doubt they have the dental care common in North America.



It's as good a theory as there is .............



Mr.Success

I've spent some teenage years living in south east Asia. When I moved back home I gained about 10 kilo's in a few months time just because of the difference in food. I was very skinny to start out with though - 57 kilo's, 1.74m while I ate whatever I liked.

Within a year of returning to europe I had an -unrecognised - MS attack.

Last year I went back for a schoolreunion. I lost 5 kilo's in the 3 weeks I was there while - again - I ate what I liked. I agree with Mr Succes that they do not eat as much sugar products as we do. Also dairy, things like bread and red meat don't get eaten as much.

It would be really interesting to see whether the chinese in Asia who suffer from MS all have ccsvi or not.

Hi!

As far as I am concerned, it has nothing to do with climate.

Environment diet yes.

East goes West, to me not a good move only because of lifestyle changes.
Far too complex to explain.

Fiona

I wonder if you could find statistics on say, Canadian people who live in China and eat a traditional Chinese diet. The two sets of data together would be interesting.

T. Colin Campbell has a great point in his interview that food needs to be considered "whole," as part of a whole diet, not as specific bits of nutrients that get analyzed separately. But I then wonder about applying the findings even further -- health also fits into a whole system, and when families emigrate they add so many new stressors and changes that these will also contribute to the disease process. People are getting hit with diet plus cultural differences plus financial stress plus potential language barriers plus so, so much more . . . No wonder the risk of all these diseases goes up!

So many refugees or other emigrees can't even decipher the labels or navigate the stores, because of language, logistics, transportation, or many, many other barriers.

Here -- "From Sudan to Alaska":

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17826347

This book by Mary Pipher describes some refugee experiences in Lincoln, Nebraska, with some details on diet:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3929 ... Everywhere

On a different note -- perhaps this ought to be a separate post so it doesn't get lost -- but here goes -- many of the most vulnerable people who need a change in diet have no voice in what they eat. If you are
* getting Meals on Wheels
* in a nursing home
* in a hospital
* getting free meals for any reason -- distributed food, soup kitchen, etc.
* in assisted living, having community meals, etc.
* unable to speak
* unable to plan
* getting free school lunch or breakfast
* getting surplus cheese, milk, peanut butter, and bread
* etc. -- you get the drift!

Then other people are making choices for you, and you will eat what is put in front of you, whatever it is, and it will probably not be what T. Colin Campbell is having for dinner.

OK, enough for now. Thank you for bringing up the discussion.

Bluesky

You are so right about cultural differences and diet.


poor diet, stress and antibiotic usage can bring on Candida and that in turn can mess up your whole system.

I discovered that I had it back in March, its only in this last week that I am confident that I have expelled all debris caused by it from my system now, as after a Chiropractic treatment or acupuncture a little more of the dead stuff would have to be wasted.

Antibiotics not only kill off bad stuff, but the good bacteria in our stomachs, that is why we need to replace them with the acidophilus suppliment.

The things we learn eh! the things we learn

Fiona

It is (in m.o.) not the climate or vitamine D. It is the western food that makes us sick. It is all on the internet, but difficult to find.

Real scientific:
[PDF] "What Really Causes Multiple Sclerosis" - Harold Foster Foundation

It's much, but worth of.

Jossi

really great points, Bluesky. You're right--there are many stressors involved with emigration. And you're also right on as to the loss of control over diet as one becomes more relient on others for care.

There's been (rightly so) a focus in research on MS in caucasians (like the recent Compston genetic study), but the story of immigrants with MS may give us more answers.

Venous malformations show up in the Chinese population, lots in the literature on Budd-Chiari, although there haven't been any specific studies on CCSVI. I still believe the underlying mechanism of MS is CCSVI. But it's good to look at other contributers, for symptom relief and long-term health.
http://phleb.rsmjournals.com/cgi/content/short/25/3/138

Our western diet is really animal protein based...it's been a challenge changing eating habits in our family...and we have access to great produce and lots of alternatives. We're very lucky. Thanks for the gratitude reminder, Bluesky.
cheer

It would help to know if the person was born here (mother in Canada while pregnant) or the person immigrated from China after birth and the age at which they came. It could answer a lot of questions.

Dania,


We need a Data Bank, some comprehensive statistics that we think are relevant.

Trust me I have searched high and low for relevvant statistics, cant find any anywhere.

About environment
Type of employment
Stress factors
past physical and psychological traumas
Regional diet


etc etc nothing, what do the researchers research, mind boggles, you know they should do it, I know they should do it.


Fiona

mri machines per 1000 people is another measurement to consider. Indeed most equatorial countries dont really have the diagnostic setup they need.It clouds the data.

I do not think diet is the cause of MS, at least not in my case. Born in the early 50's, I was brought up on a very simple diet. Never ate at McDonald's etc (it did not exist when I was growing up). No prepared foods. Again they did not exist when I was growing up. No junk food or pop/soda drinks, no candy (I hate all those things). Lots of fresh vegetables. Real meat and fish from the butcher/fish market. And my 3 siblings do not have MS nor does anyone in my extended family. I have about 30 cousins. Non have MS nor do any of their children. So why was I the lucky one?