(Becky Upham/ Everyday Health) — People with multiple sclerosis who followed a Mediterranean diet were more likely to experience less disability than people who did not, according to a new study, published October 13 in Multiple Sclerosis Journal.
These findings add to the accumulating evidence that diet is important in MS, says the lead author, Ilana Katz Sand, MD, an associate professor of neurology at the Icahn School of Medicine and a neurologist at Mount Sinai in New York City. “After rigorously controlling for demographic and health-related factors, we noted a significant association between Mediterranean diet score and objectively captured disability in people with MS,” she says.
“This study does help confirm what we’ve suspected from previous literature — that a person’s particular level of adherence to the Mediterranean diet seems to matter for outcomes of MS,” says Mary Rensel, MD, an assistant professor of medicine and the director of pediatric multiple sclerosis and wellness at the Mellen Center of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, who was not part of the research. (…)