Betina Thygesen

Maksimér Dit Liv!

Læser du her fordi du er intereseret i at vide mere om hvordan kroppen fungerer, om hvordan kost og livsstil påvirker humøret, om hvordan vi hver især i praksis kan bruge redskaber som kost og livsstil til at skabe en slags kontrol med kroppen således at et langt, sygdomsfrit og lykkeligt liv ikke er uopnåeligt, eller læser du måske fordi du endnu engang ikke kan finde på, hvad menuen står på i aften eller om hvordan det nu er, vi kan få grønkål til at smage inbydende?

Jeg arbejder dagligt med folk som dig - folk, som søger svar på ovennævnte spørgsmål, og jeg skriver her for at inspirere netop dig.

Vi arbejder alle i forskelligt tempi. I mange år tog jeg det for givet, at min krop kunne finde ud af at fordøje den mad, jeg gav den og tåle det stress, jeg pålagde den. Faktisk var det først, da kroppen sendte klare signaler om, at noget ikke var, som det skulle være, at jeg tog mig tid, stoppede op og lyttede. Det var først efter en diagnose på multipel sklerose, et par år med intramuskulære ugentlige insprøjtninger og et ophold hos en svejsisk læge, at jeg realiserede, at den, der først og fremmest skal tage ansvar for mit liv og mit helbred, er mig selv - ligeså er du ansvarlig for dit

Er det nemt at ha det godt?

For nogen er det - eller sådan kan det i hvert fald synes. Alle ved, hvor svært det er, når nogen beslutter sig for at lægge cigaretter eller et overforbrug af alkohol på hylden. Det er håndgribeligt og tydeligt og desuden videnskabeligt bevist ikke at være godt for mange af kroppens funktioner. Anderledes gælder det en kost med et overvejende stort indhold af hvidt brød, pasta, og ris, for meget kød, slik, kiks, chips og kager og ikke nok grøntsager. Det synes "ikke så slemt" - og desuden "er det jo sådan de fleste lever, så hvorfor skulle det være dårligt for mig?" I øvrigt er disse madvarer let tilgængelige og passer godt ind i vores (alt for?) hektiske hverdag. Meget hurtig kan man blive afhængig og måske endda helt glemme, hvordan det nu var før.

Umiddelbart efter min diagnose søgte jeg information og hjælp hos min min læge, som øjeblikkeligt gav mig en recept på medicin. Medicin man mener ville forhindre min autoimmune sygdom i at udvikle sig alt for hurtigt - der blev ikke nævnt noget om kost og livsstil!

Nu kan det være, at du tænker, at det er alt for kompliceret det der med at købe tørrede bælgefrugter, grønkål og urtete ... at det ikke smager helt godt nok og at det i øvrigt er alt for dyrt! Det er rigtigt, at færdiglavede "sunde" økologiske madprodukter er dyre - jeg er dog ikke enig i betragtningen at det er dyrt at lave mad fra grunden, mad lavet af økologiske, sæsonbestemte råvarer. Det tager tid at lære og tid at købe ind og tid at forberede ... desværre måske ...

Inspiration til at få det hele til at fungere - det er formålet med indlæggene her. Nye opskrifter bliver tilføjet opskriftsiden, nogle er på engelsk, hvis der er problemer med forståelse så bed endeligt om en oversættelse under kommentar.

Vigtigst af alt, husk at hvae det sjovt, nyd livet og del ud af din entusiasme ... life is beautiful!

fredag

08jan2010

Dr. Swank Diet and MS

fredag, januar 8, 2010 at 4:16AM

Anecdotal or not – diet has been reported to have a very positive effect on MS symptoms and the progression of the disease. It is something you are in control of – at least most of the time.

Right after my diagnosis, I came across the good old book by Dr. Roy Swank “Multiple Sclerosis Diet Book”. The eating guidelines go more or less like this:

Saturated fat should not exceed 15 grams per day.
Unsaturated fat (oils) should be kept to 20-50 grams per day.
No red meat for the first year.
After the first year, 3 oz. of red meat is allowed once per week.
Dairy products must contain 1% or less butterfat unless otherwise noted.
No processed foods containing saturated fat.
Cod liver oil (1 tsp. or equivalent capsules) and a multi-vitamin and mineral supplement are recommended daily.*

Thinking I had struck gold – I immediately started on this diet. For someone who was and had been living on beef, bacon, chicken, butter, milk, yoghurt, and cheese this was not easy … on top of this I lived in the Middle East where good quality fresh produce, let alone organic foods, was hard to come by.

After a few months on the diet I quit! Then after a few months I restarted, then I quit and so it went until I found that my health was actually improving and I had figured out not only how to cook without butter and cream but also how to make a vegetarian meal look and feel like a whole meal. Hurray – big revelation.

Was it really my change of diet that made me feel better?

Today after 10 years on a whole foods, mostly vegetarian, organic, low sugar diet I feel really good, but who knows maybe I would have on my old diet! This is the problem, it will never be possible to make a placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial of the food’s impact on health. Not in relation to MS, to cardiovascular health nor to cancer.

But here is the thing, when you get diagnosed with MS at age 30 after just having given birth to your second child – do you have a choice but to trust your intuition, to trust the power of health promoting foods and to mistrust all the chemicals most people fill themselves with on a daily basis? I didn’t think so and this is what brought me here.

In an interview with Dr. Swank he is asked why every doctor doesn’t educate his or her MS patients on his diet. He answers that there is no interest because there is no financial involvement. This, I think, is very sadly true.

In the well respected book “Multiple Sclerosis Guide to Treatment and Management” written by a number of medical doctors from a variety of countries the Swank diet is mentioned and evaluated as having had a positive effect on patients studied but that as there aren't any placebo-treated group to compare these studies with they cannot be trusted. In addition, the authors go: “long-term adherence to the diet may not be possible because the recommended food is not appealing”.

Well, what do you think? Is life really terrible when eating healthy, mostly vegetarian whole foods???

Ann Boroch, author of Healing Multiple Sclerosis, thinks, and I will have to agree, that: “it is better walking around watching what you eat than sitting in a wheelchair”.

I do think that there are shortcomings in Swanks book and diet, such as:

The use of white sugar (or sugar in general)
Trying to make the healing diet imitate old diet - old favorites never are successful when we healthify them.
The use of processed grains (white flour, white pasta, white rice etc.)
The lack of emphasis on food sensitivities, gluten and dairy especially
The lack of mentioning the importance of detoxifying the body of build up toxins such as heavy metals (mercury in teeth, old stuff from vaccines etc.)

But this is an old book, almost as old as me, that I am forever grateful having come across. My wish is that every newly diagnosed patient be it autoimmune or cardiovascular diseases, diabetes or problems with the intestinal health is at the very least encouraged to look inward, to listen to their bodies and then look at how they feed themselves.

*Swank MS Foundation