University of Iowa’s Terry Wahls gets $2.5 million for multiple sclerosis dietary study

IOWA CITY — A University of Iowa internal medicine professor and clinician known for her stunning personal account of reversing multiple sclerosis symptoms has landed a $2.5 million gift to further investigate ways diet might improve the quality of life for those with the MS.

Terry Wahls’ forthcoming two-year study on “Efficacy of Diet on Quality of Life in multiple sclerosis” will be one of the largest and longest-ever dietary-intervention studies on people with MS.

A $2.5 million gift from the Carter Chapman Shreve Family Foundation to the UI-based Wahls Therapeutic Lifestyle Research Fund will allow her team to recruit 156 study participants with relapsing-remitting MS.

The goal of the novel research, inspired by Wahls’ personal journey, is to investigate ways in which three diets — a modified Paleolithic diet, ketogenic diet, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture “dietary guidelines for Americans” diet — affect life quality and fatigue in relapsing-remitting MS patients.

Participants with that form of MS — involving periods of stability between relapses — will receive baseline assessments involving questionnaires and in-person evaluations of walking, hand function, cognitive function, vision, and biomarkers. Researchers then will randomly assign them to one of the three diets and track them over two years using monthly online questionnaires and two in-person visits.

Eligible participants must be between the ages of 18 and 70, live within 500 miles of Iowa City, and have been diagnosed with relapsing-remitting MS — like Wahls was in 2000, around the time she started at UI.

Join Wahls’ study

For more information on joining Wahls’ study, visit wahls.lab.uiowa.edu/join-study or send questions to MSDietStudy@healthcare.uiowa.edu.

Wahls’ journey

Within three years of diagnosis, Wahls had developed secondary progressive MS, underwent chemotherapy to try and slow the disease, and was in a wheelchair. Fearing she’d end up bedridden, Wahls began researching food origins and how vitamins affect the body, and in 2007 became her own and only trial participant in research on whether diet could ease MS symptoms.

Around the same time Wahls — then 52 — began using neuromuscular electrical stimulation, she began strict nutritional interventions.

Her typical daily intake included:

600 grams of cruciferous vegetables — like broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, and kale.

300 grams of brightly colored fruits or vegetables.

60 to 100 grams of meat, poultry, or fish.

No milk, eggs, or gluten.

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“Within two weeks of initiating dietary interventions, the patient reported singing for the first time in six months,” according to a case study on her research published in 2009 by the National Center for Biotechnology Information.

In three months, her fatigue was gone; in six months, she was walking without a cane; after nine months, she was riding her bike around the block.

“A year after I started, I did a 20-mile bike ride,” Wahls said, echoing her case study summary that reported Wahls was able to routinely ride her bike five miles to work one year after starting the electrical stimulation and nutritional intervention.

Further research

Since that time, Wahls has conducted a small pilot study — using the same protocol as her personal recovery — published in 2014. She completed a larger study of 72 participants last year investigating “dietary approaches to treating multiple sclerosis-related fatigue.”

The new $2.5 million gift for an even larger study of 156 patients “will be an important contribution to MS dietary research,” according to Wahls, who on her website spelled out implications of her work.

“We do not know if patients would do better if they combined diet and lifestyle with drugs, or if they would do just as well without any drugs at all,” according to Wahls. “Because disease-modifying drugs have a risk of some serious, life-threatening side effects and cost between $45,000 and $100,000 per year or more, this study has huge implications.

“lf diet and lifestyle treatment (without drugs) is found to be equivalent to disease-modifying drug treatments, it will have huge implications for patients and their families, as well as policymakers.”

Details of the three diets Wahls will be investigating:

The “modified Paleolithic elimination diet” cuts out all gluten, dairy, and eggs and increases fruit and vegetable intake.

The “time restricted olive oil-based ketogenic diet” limits carbohydrates to under 50 grams, uses olive oil to increase fat intake, and includes non-starchy vegetables daily.

The “USDA dietary guidelines for Americans diet” limits sodium and encourages fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and reduced-fat dairy.

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com

Terry Wahls, a University of Iowa internal medicine professor and clinician, is using a $2.5 million gift to further investigate ways diet might improve the quality of life for those with multiple sclerosis. (Photo provided by University of Iowa Health Care)