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Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis: The Evidence-based 7 Step Recovery Program
Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis is an established and successful program of treatment. Once a diagnosis of MS meant inevitable decline and disability. Now thousands of people around the world are living healthy, active lives on the Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis recovery program.Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis explains the nature of MS and outlines an evidence-based 7 step program for recovery. Professor George Jelinek devised the program from an exhaustive analysis of medical research when he was first diagnosed with MS in 1999. It has been refined through major ongoing international clinical studies under Professor Jelinek's leadership, examining the lifestyles of several thousand people with MS world-wide and their health outcomes.Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis is invaluable for anyone recently diagnosed with MS, living with MS for years, or with a family member with MS. It makes an ideal resource for doctors treating people with MS.
473 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 1, 2017
37 people are currently reading
31 people want to read
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December 16, 2024
Really interesting book about multiple sclerosis. I was really interested in this in particular and the link between that and MYELIN which I know is important for high sports performance and lots of different areas. Here are the best bits of the book:
Biography becomes biology; if we live our lives in this way, our bodies will change. The most important skill to learn is that of forgiveness, Forgiving others and ourselves for past mistakes helps healing.
At a microscopic level, the immune system sends its first line of defence-white blood cells—to the area. These cells secrete messenger chemicals that cause the inflammation, and destroy part of the myelin around some nerves. The brain and spinal cord are mainly made of fat; the type of fat depends on what we eat. The membranes of cells-their outer envelopes are made of a double layer of fat. After changing to a diet consisting of different types of fats, there are quite marked changes in the make-up of these cell membranes? This is because our bodies are not static, unchanging structures; we are literally what we eat. Deepak Chopra says, Just one year ago, 98 per cent of the atoms in our bodies were not there. It's as if we live inside buildings whose bricks are being systematically taken out and replaced?
The nervous system has an amazing capacity to regenerate, so that impulses can now detour' around the damaged lesion.® The brain changes as well, recruiting new nerve cells and pathway to compensate for what is missing, in a process of 're-wiring' called neuroplasticity. This is well described in Norman Doidge's book The Brain that Changes Itself.?
Genetics plays an important part in risk of developing MS. Interestingly, for someone in the 2 per cent of people with the genetic make-up to develop MS, one of the factors that reduces the risk is childhood exposure to a wide range of infectious diseases. 54 It is felt that this exposure makes the immune system more tolerant of challenges to it later in life. This is often referred to as the hygiene hypothesis.
They found that genes and genetic predisposition did not account at all for the clinical course or severity of disease. To quote directly from the paper, We found no evidence for genetic associations with clinical course, severity of disease or month of birth.?
This means that environmental factors, rather than genes, influence the course of MS once a person has the disease; while some of these factors are out of our control-like previous viral infections-most of these environmental influences can be controlled.
When a bacterium or virus invades the body and starts to multiply, the immune system recognises the bug as foreign, and either sends cells to the site to try to eliminate it, or instructs particular cells to secrete antibodies to try to neutralise it. The cells performing these tasks are white blood cells called lymphocytes. Lymphocytes are classified as either I or B lymphocytes, both derived from bone marrow.
To simplify very complex processes, I cells help to get rid of the invader or toxin essentially by recognising them as foreign, going to the area and destroying them, whereas B cells secrete antibodies, which are complex proteins specially and individually designed to recognise the foreign material, bind to it and neutralise it.
MS is well-known to be a Thl-predominant inflammatory condition. That is, PwMS have an exaggerated Thl response, with a tendency towards inflammation. That needs to be balanced by a stronger In? response. Interestingly, a variety of environmental and other risk factors increase the Thl response, including a predominantly high in saturated fat, Western diet, excess omega-6 fatty acids, obesity, stress, smoking, lack of exercise and depression; the Th2 response, in contrast, is increased by exercise, meditation, omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin D. This is one of the reasons these risk factors, discussed in much greater detail later, influence MS progression.
The appearance of just a lesion or two in the brain or spinal cord without noticeable symptoms is often now called a radiologically isolated syndrome (RIS). If the lesion or lesions cause one episode of clinical symptoms or signs, like loss of sensation or power, that is usually called a Clinically Isolated Syndrome (CIS). If the lesion or lesions cause more than one attack, then that satisfies the definition of multiple sclerosis.
It is quite apparent, though, that this process has been going on for quite a while for most people-often well before the actual diagnosis of MS-and that these convenient clinical distinctions between RIS, CIS and MS are really just part of a continuum. For most people, if the underlying environmental and lifestyle predisposing factors don't change, they will move on to the typical course of the disease, with progression to disability.
The number of bacteria living in our guy is around 10 times the number of cells in our bodies numbering in the trillions.
For instance, we may show that a particular therapy decreases the number of new lesions, yet we may not see any deterrence in the person clinically. The power of such medical images can be profound, and the MRI can sometimes be interpreted by both doctor and patient as a report card'; if there is a bad report, yet the person feels wet and doesn't have any worsening of the disease, it can be an extremely Next experience for the patient.
If the medical profession was as much devoted to the practice of the art of preventing as it is in curing disease, there can be no doubt that many diseases which now decimate communities would disappear altogether ...
Dr Stephen Smith, President
American Public Health Association 1873
Sadly Professor Paul from Yale University were concerned at the very development of preventative medicine as a medical speciality would mean that departments of preventative medicine would be removed from clinical medicine and lead his colleagues to focus overly on medicinal treatment of disease and forget about prevention. It’s pretty clear that this in conjunction with the commercial interests of the industry particularly in making profits for shareholders or drug companies, has led to repeated failures of modern medicine to utilise important preventative measures in dealing with modern chronic disease.
As David Suzuki, one of the most important thinkers on our planet, says. I was struck by how cardiologists saw her heart in complete isolation from her psychological, physiological, or physical condition. To the heart specialists, the opportunities for treatment consisted of hitting the sick heart with drugs or operating on it. Others things didn't factor into the equation-not the notion that extreme stress ... not a physiological imbalance from diet, or lack of exercise, not environmental conditions.'
Interestingly, working with Nobel Prize winner Professor Elizabeth Blackburn, Ornish showed that the lifestyle changes actually made a difference at the level of the participants' DNA! He showed that the expression of genes responsible for cancer is modified by lifestyle factors.23 Some naysayers who oppose a preventive medicine approach sometimes say that a lifestyle modification program just makes people feel good, and improves quality of life (which is no small benefit in any event), and that there is no underlying physiological reason it should work. This ignores the important work of many scientists over many years, but particularly this recent work showing that lifestyle changes fundamentally alter the expression of a person's genetic structure.
Our bodily cells are not static objects; they constantly being remade. Depending on where they are in the body, they may be remade rapidly, like in the gut or the skin, or only very slowly, like in bone and cartilage. But the fats that make up the outer layer or membrane of these cells come from the diet when they are remade. If the fats in the diet are mainly saturated, cell membranes will be hard and inflexible and tend to stick together. This one fact is really at the heart of the current epidemic in Western countries of diseases due to cells sticking together-diseases due to clots, like heart attacks, strokes and deep venous thrombosis, are all the result of this increased stickiness. And tissues and organs made up of these hard and inflexible cells themselves become hard and inflexible..
Another study into the degenerative neurological disorder Parkinson's disease found that people who consumed more dairy products had two to three times the risk of getting the disease.? This study involved over 135,000 men and women in the United States, and used stringent methods for collecting data on food consumption. The researchers speculated that dairy products may have a generally toxic effect on nervous tissue.
Cow's milk is not a very healthy food, and one wonders why it is consumed so widely in Western communities. After all, cow's milk is the breastmilk of another animal; while suitable for calves until they are weaned from the breast, it is hard to understand why it would be considered suitable for adults of another species.
Vitamin B12 is an important nutrient. It is a B group vitamin found primarily in meat especially liver, eggs and dairy products but also in large quantities in seafood of various types, particularly sardines. No plant foods can be relied on as a definite source of vitamin B12. It is necessary for the maintenance of a healthy nervous system and plays a key role in the metabolism of fatty acids essential for the maintenance of myelin. Prolonged BI2 deficiency can lead to nerve degeneration and irreversible neurological damage. But deficiency is more commonly caused by failure to absorb B12 from the intestine rather than a dietary deficiency.
He took these findings further, publishing with Australian Nobel Prize winner Professor Elizabeth Blackburn, showing that dietary and lifestyle changes actually changed the expression of a person's DNA: that someone isn't actually stuck with their genetic make-up for life, but can change it. 146 This was ground-breaking research.
extra virgin olive oil. It is called extra virgin because it is made from the first cold pressing of
The olives. Virgin alive oil is made trom later pressings and olive oil is refined oil
If going out into the sun to play, children should be encouraged to play with their shirts off. Hats are still a very good idea, as the face is more exposed to the harmful effects of UV radiation throughout life than any other part of the body. But getting the arms, chest and back, and legs exposed increases the skin area with which to manufacture vitamin D, and so means that more vitamin D is made from a shorter period in the sun.
The training involved chest press, leg press, seated rowing, standing hip abduction and knee-extension exercises, all designed to improve strength.
They found that the group with the resistance training had marked improvements in cognitive function; by six months of training, about half the resistance training group had normal cognitive function compared with only a quarter of the control group. It is interesting to note that the control group who did the calisthenics also experienced an improvement, but the resistance training had a much more marked improvement. Importantly, when tested a year after the end of the study, the benefits in improved cognitive function persisted.
Faith is living life as if something is true as if a desired outcome is actually going to be the outcome.
Personally, I can't stand the smell of meat anymore; it is really obvious to me, after nearly twenty years without eating meat, that meat is the flesh of another animal, often burnt. It smells like burnt flesh, and I can only imagine it tastes like burnt flesh. After nearly two decades without it, I really can't remember what it tastes like anymore! i realise now that my previous like' for meat was simply a habit,
These researchers showed that hose with higher educational level and vocabulary (as a marker of how much use they used their brains) were much less likely to show signs of cognitive decline. Intellectual enrichment involves the development of he brain's default network-that is, the parts of the brain not commonly used from day to day, but used a lot in intellectual pursuits.
Biography becomes biology; if we live our lives in this way, our bodies will change. The most important skill to learn is that of forgiveness, Forgiving others and ourselves for past mistakes helps healing.
At a microscopic level, the immune system sends its first line of defence-white blood cells—to the area. These cells secrete messenger chemicals that cause the inflammation, and destroy part of the myelin around some nerves. The brain and spinal cord are mainly made of fat; the type of fat depends on what we eat. The membranes of cells-their outer envelopes are made of a double layer of fat. After changing to a diet consisting of different types of fats, there are quite marked changes in the make-up of these cell membranes? This is because our bodies are not static, unchanging structures; we are literally what we eat. Deepak Chopra says, Just one year ago, 98 per cent of the atoms in our bodies were not there. It's as if we live inside buildings whose bricks are being systematically taken out and replaced?
The nervous system has an amazing capacity to regenerate, so that impulses can now detour' around the damaged lesion.® The brain changes as well, recruiting new nerve cells and pathway to compensate for what is missing, in a process of 're-wiring' called neuroplasticity. This is well described in Norman Doidge's book The Brain that Changes Itself.?
Genetics plays an important part in risk of developing MS. Interestingly, for someone in the 2 per cent of people with the genetic make-up to develop MS, one of the factors that reduces the risk is childhood exposure to a wide range of infectious diseases. 54 It is felt that this exposure makes the immune system more tolerant of challenges to it later in life. This is often referred to as the hygiene hypothesis.
They found that genes and genetic predisposition did not account at all for the clinical course or severity of disease. To quote directly from the paper, We found no evidence for genetic associations with clinical course, severity of disease or month of birth.?
This means that environmental factors, rather than genes, influence the course of MS once a person has the disease; while some of these factors are out of our control-like previous viral infections-most of these environmental influences can be controlled.
When a bacterium or virus invades the body and starts to multiply, the immune system recognises the bug as foreign, and either sends cells to the site to try to eliminate it, or instructs particular cells to secrete antibodies to try to neutralise it. The cells performing these tasks are white blood cells called lymphocytes. Lymphocytes are classified as either I or B lymphocytes, both derived from bone marrow.
To simplify very complex processes, I cells help to get rid of the invader or toxin essentially by recognising them as foreign, going to the area and destroying them, whereas B cells secrete antibodies, which are complex proteins specially and individually designed to recognise the foreign material, bind to it and neutralise it.
MS is well-known to be a Thl-predominant inflammatory condition. That is, PwMS have an exaggerated Thl response, with a tendency towards inflammation. That needs to be balanced by a stronger In? response. Interestingly, a variety of environmental and other risk factors increase the Thl response, including a predominantly high in saturated fat, Western diet, excess omega-6 fatty acids, obesity, stress, smoking, lack of exercise and depression; the Th2 response, in contrast, is increased by exercise, meditation, omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin D. This is one of the reasons these risk factors, discussed in much greater detail later, influence MS progression.
The appearance of just a lesion or two in the brain or spinal cord without noticeable symptoms is often now called a radiologically isolated syndrome (RIS). If the lesion or lesions cause one episode of clinical symptoms or signs, like loss of sensation or power, that is usually called a Clinically Isolated Syndrome (CIS). If the lesion or lesions cause more than one attack, then that satisfies the definition of multiple sclerosis.
It is quite apparent, though, that this process has been going on for quite a while for most people-often well before the actual diagnosis of MS-and that these convenient clinical distinctions between RIS, CIS and MS are really just part of a continuum. For most people, if the underlying environmental and lifestyle predisposing factors don't change, they will move on to the typical course of the disease, with progression to disability.
The number of bacteria living in our guy is around 10 times the number of cells in our bodies numbering in the trillions.
For instance, we may show that a particular therapy decreases the number of new lesions, yet we may not see any deterrence in the person clinically. The power of such medical images can be profound, and the MRI can sometimes be interpreted by both doctor and patient as a report card'; if there is a bad report, yet the person feels wet and doesn't have any worsening of the disease, it can be an extremely Next experience for the patient.
If the medical profession was as much devoted to the practice of the art of preventing as it is in curing disease, there can be no doubt that many diseases which now decimate communities would disappear altogether ...
Dr Stephen Smith, President
American Public Health Association 1873
Sadly Professor Paul from Yale University were concerned at the very development of preventative medicine as a medical speciality would mean that departments of preventative medicine would be removed from clinical medicine and lead his colleagues to focus overly on medicinal treatment of disease and forget about prevention. It’s pretty clear that this in conjunction with the commercial interests of the industry particularly in making profits for shareholders or drug companies, has led to repeated failures of modern medicine to utilise important preventative measures in dealing with modern chronic disease.
As David Suzuki, one of the most important thinkers on our planet, says. I was struck by how cardiologists saw her heart in complete isolation from her psychological, physiological, or physical condition. To the heart specialists, the opportunities for treatment consisted of hitting the sick heart with drugs or operating on it. Others things didn't factor into the equation-not the notion that extreme stress ... not a physiological imbalance from diet, or lack of exercise, not environmental conditions.'
Interestingly, working with Nobel Prize winner Professor Elizabeth Blackburn, Ornish showed that the lifestyle changes actually made a difference at the level of the participants' DNA! He showed that the expression of genes responsible for cancer is modified by lifestyle factors.23 Some naysayers who oppose a preventive medicine approach sometimes say that a lifestyle modification program just makes people feel good, and improves quality of life (which is no small benefit in any event), and that there is no underlying physiological reason it should work. This ignores the important work of many scientists over many years, but particularly this recent work showing that lifestyle changes fundamentally alter the expression of a person's genetic structure.
Our bodily cells are not static objects; they constantly being remade. Depending on where they are in the body, they may be remade rapidly, like in the gut or the skin, or only very slowly, like in bone and cartilage. But the fats that make up the outer layer or membrane of these cells come from the diet when they are remade. If the fats in the diet are mainly saturated, cell membranes will be hard and inflexible and tend to stick together. This one fact is really at the heart of the current epidemic in Western countries of diseases due to cells sticking together-diseases due to clots, like heart attacks, strokes and deep venous thrombosis, are all the result of this increased stickiness. And tissues and organs made up of these hard and inflexible cells themselves become hard and inflexible..
Another study into the degenerative neurological disorder Parkinson's disease found that people who consumed more dairy products had two to three times the risk of getting the disease.? This study involved over 135,000 men and women in the United States, and used stringent methods for collecting data on food consumption. The researchers speculated that dairy products may have a generally toxic effect on nervous tissue.
Cow's milk is not a very healthy food, and one wonders why it is consumed so widely in Western communities. After all, cow's milk is the breastmilk of another animal; while suitable for calves until they are weaned from the breast, it is hard to understand why it would be considered suitable for adults of another species.
Vitamin B12 is an important nutrient. It is a B group vitamin found primarily in meat especially liver, eggs and dairy products but also in large quantities in seafood of various types, particularly sardines. No plant foods can be relied on as a definite source of vitamin B12. It is necessary for the maintenance of a healthy nervous system and plays a key role in the metabolism of fatty acids essential for the maintenance of myelin. Prolonged BI2 deficiency can lead to nerve degeneration and irreversible neurological damage. But deficiency is more commonly caused by failure to absorb B12 from the intestine rather than a dietary deficiency.
He took these findings further, publishing with Australian Nobel Prize winner Professor Elizabeth Blackburn, showing that dietary and lifestyle changes actually changed the expression of a person's DNA: that someone isn't actually stuck with their genetic make-up for life, but can change it. 146 This was ground-breaking research.
extra virgin olive oil. It is called extra virgin because it is made from the first cold pressing of
The olives. Virgin alive oil is made trom later pressings and olive oil is refined oil
If going out into the sun to play, children should be encouraged to play with their shirts off. Hats are still a very good idea, as the face is more exposed to the harmful effects of UV radiation throughout life than any other part of the body. But getting the arms, chest and back, and legs exposed increases the skin area with which to manufacture vitamin D, and so means that more vitamin D is made from a shorter period in the sun.
The training involved chest press, leg press, seated rowing, standing hip abduction and knee-extension exercises, all designed to improve strength.
They found that the group with the resistance training had marked improvements in cognitive function; by six months of training, about half the resistance training group had normal cognitive function compared with only a quarter of the control group. It is interesting to note that the control group who did the calisthenics also experienced an improvement, but the resistance training had a much more marked improvement. Importantly, when tested a year after the end of the study, the benefits in improved cognitive function persisted.
Faith is living life as if something is true as if a desired outcome is actually going to be the outcome.
Personally, I can't stand the smell of meat anymore; it is really obvious to me, after nearly twenty years without eating meat, that meat is the flesh of another animal, often burnt. It smells like burnt flesh, and I can only imagine it tastes like burnt flesh. After nearly two decades without it, I really can't remember what it tastes like anymore! i realise now that my previous like' for meat was simply a habit,
These researchers showed that hose with higher educational level and vocabulary (as a marker of how much use they used their brains) were much less likely to show signs of cognitive decline. Intellectual enrichment involves the development of he brain's default network-that is, the parts of the brain not commonly used from day to day, but used a lot in intellectual pursuits.
March 12, 2025
I was living with MS for years before being officially diagnosed in 2021. I got annual MRIs, and I did not take any meds due to side effects. I had one flare up in 2021. My legs decided to a break, and I was numb from the waist down. I decided to try MS-4 from Uine Health Centre. The numbness and Muscle spasms went away after a couple of weeks, but it took almost 3 months to walk properly without a cane. In June, it will be four years without incident, and I am extremely happy that I made the decision to not take any meds and went for the MS-4 formula even though my neurologist got upset and one told me to quit my job because I will be disabled. Well, I am not disabled, I still refuse to take those meds, and I am doing just fine. Believe in yourself and go with your instincts. Doctors don't know it all. I’m surprised a lot of people with MS haven’t heard of the MS-4 protocol, I got the treatment from uinehealthcentre. com I am absolutely confident that this protocol offers a viable solution. I hope you find it helpful.
September 27, 2021
A life changing must read for anyone living with MS
August 21, 2023
i was researching about autoimmune diseases(Multiple Sclerosis to be specific) and current health tech to help curb/manage it and i found this website ww w. natural herbs centre. com It made a tremendous difference for me I had improved walking balance, muscle strength and improved vision, always thankful for nature that helps in managing these terrible diseases. I’m active now, I can personally vouch for these remedy but you would probably need to decide what works best for you🧡.
September 18, 2022
Very helpful. I learned a lot.
January 14, 2022
This book changed everything for me…I am so very grateful to have stumbled upon the OMS program and work of Dr Jelinek.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews