Terry Wahls, a medical doctor with multiple sclerosis (MS), devised her own treatment plan using a paleo (hunter-gatherer) diet to feed her mitochondria and reverse her MS symptoms. MS is a neurological disorder where myelin sheath, the insulator of the brains neurons, wears away, leading to major disabilities. Wahls devised a plan to feed her mitochondria, the cells that make myelin, in order to treat her MS, which at the time had put her into a wheel chair.
Using the Internet and advice from other doctors, Wahls developed the dietary protocol that allowed her to eventually stand and walk on her own. It consists of 3 cups of leafy greens, 3 cups of bright color, 3 cups of sulfur rich vegetables, organ meats, and seaweed. This diet goes back to what humans were eating when they were hunter-gatherers, and it exceeds today’s recommended daily allowances of vitamins and minerals by two to ten times. Today most people do not meet their recommended daily allowance for crucial vitamins and minerals and this leads to various health complications including a reduction in brain size/mass and crooked teeth. If a person commits to this diet or implementing some crucial parts of it they could see vast improvement of their overall health, as it has the potential to reverse neurological damage and the benefits may not to be limited to that.
Sources:
Wahls, Terry, “Minding your Mitochondria.” TED Blog: 11 Talks on the Transformative Power of Vegetables, Event recorded: Nov. 11, 2011, Posted August 9, 2012. http://blog.ted.com/2012/08/09/10-talks-on-the-transformative-power-of-vegetables/
Wahls, Terry. The Wahls Protocol: Defeating Progressive MS Without Drugs, “The Wahls Protocol Prologue.” http://www.terrywahls.com/the-wahls-protocol-prologue
Student Researcher: Brooke Connell, San Francisco State University
Faculty Evaluator: Kenn Burrows, San Francisco State University