Most research on the relationship between nutrition and multiple sclerosis has been done in Germany. All the accumulated evidence seems to indicate that this crippling disease is caused by malnutrition and is a result of the “civilized” way of life. Researchers have found that the so-called “primitive” people, for example Eskimos and some tribes in Africa and Central America, do not contract multiple sclerosis. However, as soon as Eskimos come into contact with civilization and start to eat white man’s devitalized and processed foods, they contract the disease in the same proportion as civilized man. Thus, there is a firm conviction among some investigators that multiple sclerosis is a degenerative disease, caused by nutritional deficiencies and metabolic disorders due to an unnatural, unbalanced diet of devitalized foods. Consequently, all experimental treatments in Europe are centering around a nutritional approach.
Vitamin F deficiency
According to the Danish biochemist, Dr. Jorgen Clausen, multiple sclerosis has a direct connection with the deficiency of unsaturated fatty acids—vitamin F—in the diet. He has demonstrated in animal experiments that when diet is deficient in unsaturated fatty acids, the protective fatty sheaths of myelin, which cover the nerves, will be unsufficiently developed; the nerves, not fully protected by this fatty sheath, are more easily subjected to infections of the MS type. In addition to animal experiments, Dr. Clausen has supported his discovery by the geographical occurrence of MS. It has been observed that where diets are deficient in unsaturated fatty acids there is also a higher frequency of multiple sclerosis. Extensive studies made in England show that patients with multiple sclerosis show a much lower blood content of the unsaturated fatty acids than do normal individuals.
Normally, mother’s milk, which is richer than cow’s milk in unsaturated fatty acids, supplies a sufficient amount of it for the healthy development of the nervous system of a baby. It has been reported that bottle-fed babies have a higher incidence of MS than breast-fed babies. Dr. Clausen has demonstrated that rats fed a diet without unsaturated fats immediately developed symptoms of multiple sclerosis.
*103\58\2*
