So much has changed in the medical community since I first started talking about my multiple sclerosis (MS) recovery in 2008. In this blog, I’m sharing the story of my initial research and how it has been received over the years. I will also discuss the changes I've seen, and what they mean for people with MS and other systemic autoimmune conditions.
Initial Response from the Community
When I began walking again in 2008, I called my local organic grocery, New Pioneer Co-Op in Iowa City, and pitched the idea of doing a talk about my recovery at their store. They had hosted cooking classes before but never a health-focused class, and they agreed to give it a try.
So many people signed up for the talk that they needed to move it to a larger venue. I told my story to a room of 70 attendees, laying out what I had done: I followed a very structured Paleolithic diet, took supplements to support my mitochondria, and used electrical stimulation of my muscles while I did my exercises.
I told them that for me, the combination of those three primary interventions had a huge impact — my decline stopped.
Soon after, I began to have more energy and improved mental clarity. My physical therapist said that I was definitely stronger, and because of that we advanced my exercise program. Six months after that, I was able to start cycling again. And in another six months, I completed an 18-mile bike ride with my family.
There was a long wait list of people who were interested in my story, so I did a couple more talks at New Pioneer.
That was early 2009.
The Pushback
The Iowa City chapter of the National MS Society support group reached out and asked if I would be open to speaking with them; I agreed. They then informed me that I would have to agree to be interviewed by their clinical advisory committee.
One of the members of that committee was my own neurologist. In our phone interview, she and two other physicians informed me that I had been banned by the Society as a speaker because my message was too dangerous. Their stated concern was that people with MS would be given “false hope,” leading them to decline disease-modifying treatments (DMTs).
I was then called into the Chief of Staff’s office at the Iowa City VA. He had received complaints that I was not following the standard of care for traumatic brain injury (TBI) because I was using diet to treat those veterans. He’d also heard that I was banned as a speaker by the National MS Society.
I had brought a handful of research papers with me to that meeting and explained what I was doing and why. My boss reviewed these, and advised me to learn how to talk about my approach in a similar way to the Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) Clinic at the University of Iowa. If it seemed like my approaches were being used to directly treat disease, I would open myself up to complaints to the Iowa Board of Medicine.
A New Message
After that, I worked to clarify my message. I focused on how the structured diet and targeted supplements I was advocating were helping the cells function better. If the cells worked better, the chemistry of life would work better, and as a result, the organs would likely start working better as well.
I also made it a point to say that if the person was on medication, they would need to be monitored by whoever prescribed the medications, to keep an eye on dosage amounts.
My clinical colleagues were much more comfortable with this message, but it was too late. I was still banned by the National MS Society. At this point, my Chief of Medicine at the University of Iowa asked to work with my medical team to get a case report written up about my recovery.
The Origin of My Clinical Research
The Chief of Medicine then directed me to begin conducting a safety and feasibility study to test whether others with progressive MS could implement the multi-faceted intervention that I used for my recovery. He also found me the scientific mentors I needed to teach me how to run clinical intervention trials.
It took a year to write the protocol and secure funding for the supplements and electrical therapy devices, but in 2010, we enrolled our first participants with progressive MS in the study.
The average disability level was between cane- and walker-dependent. When we finished the 12-month intervention with the first 10 people, we were able to demonstrate that people could adhere to the diet more than 90% of days, and that they were able to exercise and do the stress management techniques every day. Participants experienced a remarkable reduction in fatigue severity, improvement in quality of life, mood, and mental clarity, and half experienced improvement in their walking.
Minding Your Mitochondria
I gave a TEDx talk in Iowa City on November 11, 2011. I told my story, explaining the theories I’d used to create my diet and self-care regimen. I also talked about our trials and mentioned that we were presenting the data from our first 10 participants at a brain research conference in a couple of weeks.
That talk went viral, leading many neurologists to hear about my recovery from their patients.
Pushback, Part Two
The MS neurology community was deeply concerned that my story (again) created false hope. I was even more vigorously condemned online, with some even going as far as to say that I had never even had secondary progressive MS, because my recovery was so unbelievable.
My neurologist and the Chief of Medicine both advised me to “ignore the haters,” continue to speak where I was invited, continue the research, and publish the findings. But because a multimodal investigation that included diet, supplements, stress management, exercise, and electrical muscle stimulation had never been done, it was very difficult to find reviewers for that first paper.
Finally, nearly three years after we finished with the first 10 participants, we were able to publish. After that, I kept publishing papers on dietary interventions in the setting of MS.
The Birth of the Wahls Protocol®
I published The Wahls Protocol: How I Beat Progressive MS Using Paleo Principles and Functional Medicine in March 2014. It was a best seller. The National MS Society observed a dramatic increase in social media mentions of Dr. Terry Wahls, the Wahls Protocol®, and the Wahls diet, especially compared to mentions of the new biologic DMTs.
Around this time, the Society’s top donors were planning a wellness conference to help make diet and wellness a research priority. They tracked me down and asked me to attend; I told them I would only come if I had it in writing that I was no longer a banned speaker, and they agreed.
2016 WAVES Study
In 2016, the National MS Society funded a study that compared the low-saturated fat (Swank) diet to the modified Paleolithic elimination (Wahls Elimination®) diet in people with relapsing-remitting MS. We finished the study in 2020 and published our results, which showed that the Wahls Elimination® diet significantly reduced fatigue, improved quality of life, and improved mood and walking endurance. (1-4)
2023 Network Meta-Analysis
Dr. Linda Snetselaar conducted a 2023 study of all randomized controlled diet studies that included either fatigue or quality of life patient-reported outcomes. Dr. Snetselaar found that the Paleolithic and Mediterranean diets were both effective in reducing fatigue and improving quality of life, with the Paleolithic diet being about twice as effective as the Mediterranean diet for these outcomes.(5)
A Race Against Time
The Consortium of MS Centers (CMSC) is an organization that conducts MS research and hosts the premier educational conference for people who care for MS patients. One of their projects is the North American Research Committee on Multiple Sclerosis (NARCOMS), a database of individuals’ experience with MS — its magazine, NARCOMS NOW, is sent to thousands of MS patients every quarter. I have been completing their quality of life survey every six months since 2002.
As usual, I read their publication when it arrived last week. The feature article, “A Race Against Time,” discussed the issue of age. Aging accelerates after age 45, and that is when disability accelerates.(6)
Eighteen years after I was condemned for telling my story, urging people to improve their diet, adopt a stress management practice, and implement an exercise program, attitudes have finally changed. At the CMSC annual meetings, there are more talks about diet, stress management, and exercise as adjuncts to the conventional DMT therapies. My research is even referenced. Sometimes I spot pictures of The Wahls Protocol in presenters’ slide decks.
The author of the “A Race Against Time” article discussed how important it is to address diet and lifestyle to slow the aging process.(6) Clinicians and scientists who are attending the premier MS clinical meetings are being told that diet and self-care are important and should be part of the treatment plan for every MS patient.
Changing the Standard of Care, Finally
I tell my students and post-doctoral scholars that it takes 30 years to change the standard of care, and right now we’re only halfway there.
If your medical team is not talking to you about diet, stress management, sleep, exercise, and social connection, they are not keeping up with what is being taught. I encourage you to find someone who can support you with these interventions — and no one has been doing it as long as I have.
For starters, sign up for our newsletter so you can participate in the free webinars that we have each month.
There is so much that you can do to support your healing journey. Don’t miss out. Be part of the community and learn what you can be doing.
Citations
- Saxby SM, Haas C, Shemirani F, Titcomb TJ, Eyck PT, Rubenstein LM, et al. Association Between Improved Serum Fatty Acid Profiles and Cognitive Function During a Dietary Intervention Trial in Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis. Int J MS Care. 2024;26(2):61-8.
- Shemirani F, Titcomb TJ, Saxby SM, Eyck PT, Rubenstein LM, Hoth KF, et al. Association of serum homocysteine, folate, and vitamin B(12) and mood following the Swank and Wahls elimination dietary interventions in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis: Secondary analysis of the WAVES trial. Mult Scler Relat Disord. 2023;75:104743.
- Crippes LJ, Saxby SM, Shemirani F, Bisht B, Gill C, Rubenstein LM, et al. Diet-induced changes in functional disability are mediated by fatigue in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis: A secondary analysis of the WAVES randomized parallel-arm trial. Mult Scler J Exp Transl Clin. 2023;9(4):20552173231209147.
- Wahls TL, Titcomb TJ, Bisht B, Eyck PT, Rubenstein LM, Carr LJ, et al. Impact of the Swank and Wahls elimination dietary interventions on fatigue and quality of life in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis: The WAVES randomized parallel-arm clinical trial. Mult Scler J Exp Transl Clin. 2021;7(3):20552173211035399.
- Snetselaar LG, Cheek JJ, Fox SS, Healy HS, Schweizer ML, Bao W, et al. Efficacy of Diet on Fatigue and Quality of Life in Multiple Sclerosis: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-analysis of Randomized Trials. Neurology. 2023;100(4):e357-e66.
- Alderton M., A Race Against Time. NARCOMS Now. 2026. 15(1):5.
