Rebuilding Myelin with Supplements

I’d like to share a little bit about using supplements to try and help rebuild myelin in MS (multiple sclerosis). Myelin is the sheath that surrounds your nervous system and that’s what breaks down in multiple sclerosis. 

It’s an autoimmune process where the immune system attacks that sheath, breaks it down to the point where the nerves don’t conduct the way they’re supposed to. We see a lot of the symptoms of MS, which include balance problems, coordination issues, numbness and so forth. 

When you look at a lot of the research on rebuilding myelin, unfortunately almost all that research has done in mice or other animals. It doesn’t necessarily translate to what happens in humans, but there’s no harm in a lot of these nutrients because they have other potential benefits. I want to share a little bit about my own personal supplement regimen.

This is what I recommend to my patients in my practice, and I take every day to help rebuild my myelin. Again, this is based mostly on animal research. 

Multivitamins 

The first thing I take is just a regular multivitamin. This is my particular brand and a lot of good multivitamins nowadays are very high in B vitamins. So again, we have some evidence that B vitamins, particularly folic acid and B12 are very nutritive to the nervous system, both the brain and the peripheral nervous system. This multivitamin, in particular, has methylated versions of these B vitamins in it, which are the active form of the nutrient. I take a couple of capsules of this twice a day with food. 

Multivitamins as a whole, you want to take with food because a lot of the nutrients in it need food for absorption. – Tweet this 

If you take a multivitamin on an empty stomach, certain nutrients like zinc on an empty stomach can make you feel a little bit nauseous. 

Coenzyme Q10

CoQ10 is specifically to help rebuild the mitochondria. We have some evidence that people with MS have poor functioning or damaged mitochondria and mitochondria are the part of the cell that are literally the powerhouses of the cell. This is what creates energy. A lot of people with MS have very poor energy, poor stamina, and a lot of that’s due to mitochondrial function. 

CoQ10’s good for building your mitochondria and has the additional benefits of helping prevent heart disease. [TWEET THIS]

Vitamin D and K2

I take a combination of vitamin D and vitamin K2. There’s some evidence that the two work synergistically, but vitamin D has been shown to be low in a lot of people with MS and other neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

The higher latitude you get, the further you get away from the sun. In the wintertime even in sunny California, most of us are indoors more. We wear long clothing when we’re outside or we wear sunblock. All of that effectively blocks the conversion of vitamin D, which mostly happens in the skin. 

We actually get very little vitamin D through food, so we depend on the sun for that exposure. 

As your vitamin D levels drop, your risk for autoimmune disease and neurological problems goes up. [TWEET THIS]

If you’re concerned about toxicity, it’s easy to get a simple blood test that would show your vitamin D levels. Ideally, we want to see your vitamin D level over 50. Ask your doctor to check your vitamin D3 with a blood test.

Magnesium

I take magnesium citrate, magnesium in just about any form is a natural spasmolytic. A lot of people with multiple sclerosis tend to get muscle spasms, cramping can happen anytime during the day and night. Spasms limit mobility and cause pain. If you’re taking medication to help reduce muscle spasms, that can also be helpful.

Magnesium’s a nutrient that anybody can take and it’s very safe for anybody and it does a nice job of helping reduce those muscle spasms. Magnesium is one of those nutrients that you use probably more than any other nutrient in the body, so you can burn through it very quickly. If you happen to be someone who’s fairly active, you’ll burn through it faster. 

Magnesium is one of those foods or one of those nutrients that we don’t always get a lot through food. It tends to be very high in legumes, nuts and seeds. 

If you’ve been following The Wahls Protocol and you’ve removed legumes from your diet, you’ve removed that magnesium source. Supplement to make sure you’re getting adequate amounts.

Take magnesium up to a point where the tissue is saturated, but not so much that you get loose stool or diarrhea. If you start taking magnesium, and your stool loosens, back off the dose a little bit. 

Emu Oil

Dr. Wahls introduced me to emu oil. The emu oil I use is from a company called Walkabout. 

I’ve taken fish oil and other essential fatty acids over the years. When I started taking emu oil, I definitely noticed a change. I now recommend emu oil for all of my multiple sclerosis patients. I find it’s very well tolerated. Make sure you take this with food. With any kind of essential fatty acid, you want a little bit of food in your stomach just to help with absorption and also to keep you from burping it up. 

Phosphatidylcholine

Phosphatidylcholine is a type of fat and phosphatidylcholine is a fat that’s particularly integrated into your brain, into your nerve tissue.

We’ve talked about the brain being this big glob of fat and it’s true, but that big glob of fat is mostly made up of phosphatidylcholine. It is that lipid layer that makes up the brain, your nervous tissue and a lot of other tissues in your body. It’s also very important for the liver and detoxification. 

With phosphatidylcholine you’re getting the brain benefits, you’re getting the liver benefits and it’s generally very well tolerated. The one thing I’ll say about phosphatidylcholine, they’re horse pills. These are 1000 milligram capsules. For people that have a hard time swallowing capsules, this might be a little bit hard. There is a liquid form of this as well. So if you find swallowing the big capsules is challenging for you, you can always get it in liquid form. The liquid form I will tell you is very thick.

Glutathione 

I particularly like this company called ReadiSorb. Dr. Tim Guilford in Palo Alto, California developed this. He actually invested a lot of his own money into this product and he found the absorption of this liposomal glutathione was almost as good as getting it IV or intravenously. So that says a lot because a lot of glutathione products really don’t get absorbed very well. 

Glutathione is very nutritive to the nervous system. It’s a very important antioxidant and important for liver detoxification. [TWEET THIS]

You’re getting a lot of different mechanisms with glutathione. Glutathione is a sulfur-based compound. It does have a little bit of an eggy flavor to it. Some people don’t like the taste. You can mix it in a little bit of dilute juice to mask the flavor. I like the liquid if people can take it and tolerate it because again, I think the absorption is a little bit better and clinically I see good results with it. 

I think all of these nutrients have a potential impact on rebuilding myelin. If you or someone you know has been living with MS and were looking for every advantage we have to try and help rebuild our myelin, I think this is a pretty good regimen to follow. 

There are other nutrients out there that may be beneficial as well. There’s more research coming out every day. So as more information comes along, I’ll pass that along to you.

I hope you found this helpful. 

Thank you, for joining me as we continue our series about MS.

 

 

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Thanks so much.

Darin Ingels, ND, FAAEM, FMAPS

 

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