Food Allergies
Some people report that cutting certain foods out of their diet has led to a dramatic improvement in their MS. However, there is no scientific evidence that food allergy or intolerance plays a part in the disease. This may be because food reactions are very individual and not easily studied using scientific trials. This is something of a grey area: for example, even though clinical trials suggest that a gluten-free diet is of no benefit in MS, there are still people who are convinced that it works for them. This could be because they are genuinely affected by gluten, or it could be coincidence that their symptoms went into remission naturally at around the time the diet started. Just believing that a treatment works can sometimes be enough to give a beneficial effect, a phenomenon known as a ‘placebo effect’.
If you want to investigate the role of food allergy in your symptoms, take the advice of a registered dietician. They will be able to advise you on how to cut out groups of the most common food allergens without missing out on essential nutrients. There is also a section on food allergy in Multiple Sclerosis: the Self Help Guide by Judy Graham.
Always treat private nutritional consultants and allergy testing clinics with caution. Although some are reputable, anyone can set up these services without any qualifications of accreditation. In particular, the results given by some mail-order allergy testing services have been shown to be meaningless. Expensive diets or supplements that make extravagant health claims are nothing more than money-making schemes by unscrupulous companies, and can sometimes actually be dangerous.