March 17, 2017

Episode 239: Dr. Terry Wahls Part 1

39 minutes

Ep. 239: Dr. Terry Wahls Part 1

In this episode, Stacy and Sarah invite on Dr. Terry Wahls to discuss her research on multiple sclerosis improvements with a whole foods diet.

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The Paleo View (TPV), Episode 239: Dr. Terry Wahls Part 1

Intro (0:00)

News and Views (0:40)

It's a special show today! We have Dr. Terry Wahls on! She's a real deal real foods hero who maintains her Multiple Sclerosis with a whole foods diet!

She is the author of The Wahls Protocol and the upcoming The Wahls Protocol: Cooking for Life

Sarah has been looking forward to talking with another scientist who can geek out on her science level.

Yes, Stacy has reading glasses, but Matt is way into it so it's totally fine.

Sarah was inspired in her paleo journey by seeing the Terry Wahls TedX talk.

Dr. Terry Wahls is out guest (6:00)

Terry recently was at the Nutritional Therapy Association conference in Vancouver

Terry is not only advocating for a diet and lifestyle change, but is actually doing clinical trials to test it.

In fact, if you have MS, you can join one of her studies.

These kinds of studies are difficult to do, particularly because changing someone's diet isn't easy to double blind; you know if you're eating broccoli. Placebo effect is certain to be an issue.

In the next Journal of the American College of Nutrition will be a study she ran using her original protocol and its effect on anxiety, depression and cognitive function and found significant improvement in 21 patients

A previous study was published that actually featured a control group, though that control group kept doing the Wahls Protocol on their own. People on the diet reduced their fatigue symptoms and improved motor function over the control group.

MS is a progressive autoimmune disease where the immune system attacks myelin, the insulating covers of nerve cells, and causes deterioration of nervous and brain function over time.

Relapse and remitting MS has an up and down effect where sometimes you have long periods of time where the disease doesn't worsen, followed by periods of acute periods. But over time the symptoms will slowly worsen whether you are in remission or not.

Because over a short duration study, Dr. Wahls didn't expect a significant improvement in motor function, so this was a surprise.

Dr. Wahls is going to try to follow up with he study group after some amount of time to see if there was continued improvement.

Sarah doesn't quite understand why people say paleo is hard because the motivation for her to continue is because of how amazing she was feeling.

At the beginning of her study, Dr. Wahls study group were eating 1.5 servings of veggies per day 5 servings of grains, dairy and eggs per day. After a year, they were up to 8 servings of veggies and were mostly avoiding the no foods. Clearly these patients were seeing the results to be so compliant to the protocol!

Only a few people went off the diet, one got Leukemia, another got divorced and couldn't follow.

Sarah is very aware of how sensitive bodies are to foods and how obvious the changes can be. The commitment is still very much required.

Having a "treat" after years on the protocol often leads to a relapse, and a typical doctor response is "see diet doesn't work!"

Dr. Wahls says that the protocol is a great treatment, but relapsing on your diet is likely to lead to a relapse of your disease!

Everyone can benefit from more veggies, but people are unlikely to change without a severe disease to manage. Dr. Wahls tries to translate to patients by asking "What is your life for?" and relating that to improved health from diet change.

People would either be willing to be compliant or not ready yet.

It's important not to add guilt if people aren't ready yet.

Stacy remembers thinking that pretzels and Diet Coke were a good choice and being surprised when someone called her out. She wasn't ready to hear it yet.

Part 2 coming next week! (35:02)

If you want more from Dr. Wahls, check out her website and her books, The Wahls Protocol and the upcoming The Wahls Protocol: Cooking for Life

And if you want to participate in her study and have MS, check out her site here.

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Outro (36:11)

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