Turmeric, fatty fish, avocados, and olive oil are among the foods believed to have anti-inflammatory effects in the body.
When you have multiple sclerosis (MS), it’s important to follow a healthy diet. After all, your diet plays a significant role in your cardiovascular and overall health, both of which can have an impact on your MS symptoms and your daily function.
In recent years, a growing number of studies have investigated the link between diet and MS, exploring questions such as whether making changes to what you eat may improve symptoms such as fatigue and possibly slow progression of the disease, according to an editorial published in September 2022 in Multiple Sclerosis Journal. The editorial notes that more research needs to be done before specific dietary interventions can be identified as beneficial for people with MS, but that in the meantime, following a generally healthy diet is recommended.
“Right now, we cannot really make any big statements about the role of diet,” says Laura Piccio, MD, PhD, a neurologist at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and a coauthor of the Multiple Sclerosis Journal article. “There are suggestions that diet may be important, but we don’t have any robust clinical evidence that allows us to suggest one specific diet over another for patients with MS.”
One particular area of focus of the research on MS and diet has been anti-inflammatory foods and whether they may be beneficial. This makes intuitive sense, since it’s well established that MS is an inflammatory disease.
How Diet May Impact Inflammation in MS
“Inflammation definitely plays a role, probably both in the development of the disease and in the subsequent clinical course,” says Dr. Piccio. But, she adds, that doesn’t mean we currently have a clear understanding of how diet affects this process.
Numerous studies involving animal models, as well as some smaller studies of people, are underway to explore the connection between diet and MS and to understand how different foods could affect inflammatory processes in the body. “Probably in the next few years, we’ll have some answers,” says Piccio.
In the meantime, she recommends following a diet that’s rich in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and legumes, and low in sugar, salt, saturated fat, and processed foods. “We know for sure,” says Piccio, that such a diet “will impact the cardiovascular system, and so indirectly, this will benefit MS.”
Most of the foods that are widely touted for their anti-inflammatory effects, it turns out, are also good for you in other ways, and bear Piccio’s stamp of approval. “Definitely, those would be good recommendations that I would give to any patient to promote general health,” she notes.
Here are eight foods with anti-inflammatory properties that you should check out if you have MS — even if we’re still waiting on solid evidence regarding their MS-specific benefits.
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Fatty Fish Is a Good Source of Omega-3 Fatty Acids
Fatty fish — such as trout, salmon, tuna, mackerel, herring, and sardines — are good sources of omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-3s are widely understood to have cardiovascular benefits, and may be beneficial for people with MS. A review published in July 2021 in Nutritional Neuroscience found that omega-3 and fish oil may reduce inflammatory markers and relapse rates and improve quality of life for people with MS.
At least a couple of studies, including one published in October 2020 in the journal Multiple Sclerosis, have found that a higher intake of fatty fish may lower a person’s risk of developing MS.
Fruits and Vegetables Are Rich in Antioxidants
Fruits and vegetables are rich in phytochemicals and antioxidants, substances that may help reduce inflammation. According to Harvard Health Publishing, an anti-inflammatory diet should include foods like tomatoes, leafy greens such as spinach and kale, and fruits like strawberries, blueberries, cherries, and oranges.
There’s some evidence that consuming these foods could be beneficial for MS. In a study published in January 2018 in the journal Neurology, a diet rich in fruits and vegetables was found to correlate with less disability and lower symptom severity in people with MS, including less fatigue, pain, cognitive impairment, and depression.
On the other hand, there were other dietary factors in that study that make it unclear how much fruits and vegetables were responsible for the results.
A study published in January 2022 in European Journal of Neurology found that eating a high-quality diet rich in fruits and vegetables, as well as not consuming meat, was associated with a lower risk of severe disability in people with multiple sclerosis.
And a meta-analysis published in October 2022 in Neurology found that dietary interventions that typically are high in fruits and vegetables, specifically the paleo and Mediterranean diets, were associated with greater reductions in fatigue and greater improvements in physical and mental quality of life than a control diet plan.
Turmeric Has Numerous Anti-Inflammatory Effects
Turmeric is a vibrant yellow, fragrant spice that grows as a rhizome (underground stem). It can be used fresh, but it’s most widely available in its dried and powdered form.
The most widely studied molecule in turmeric, known as curcumin, has been shown to have numerous potentially beneficial effects in the human body — some of which could be especially relevant to MS. As noted in a research review published in January 2017 in the Journal of Cellular Physiology, curcumin can affect various cells in your immune system in a way that may decrease the severity of diseases stemming from an immune-system response.
One particular anti-inflammatory effect of curcumin is that it can block activation of a molecule that regulates tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha), which plays a role in inflammation in most inflammatory diseases, including MS, as noted in a study published in October 2017 in the journal Foods.
And according to a review paper published August 2019 in the Journal of Cellular Physiology, curcumin may be effective in the treatment of MS, particularly by inhibiting the secretion of proinflammatory cytokines, which are messenger chemicals that are involved in inflammation.
Ginger May Reduce Inflammation in the Nervous System
Ginger is another rhizome with a potent, spicy flavor. Like turmeric, it can be used fresh or dried and powdered.
Fresh ginger and ginger extracts are believed to contain a number of different anti-inflammatory compounds. One of these, 10-gingerol, is believed to be the most important in reducing neuroinflammation — inflammation in the brain or spinal cord — in particular, according to a study published in the journal Food Chemistry.
Another compound in ginger, known as 6-shogaol, has also been shown to reduce neuroinflammation and improve cognitive function in mice, as found in a study published in the journal Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications. And a review published in June 2021 in Pharmaceuticals (Basel) noted that early studies show promising evidence that 6-shogaol can act as an anti-inflammatory compound, though researchers are still investigating exactly how it works.
Another review, published in March 2022 in Frontiers in Nutrition, concluded that the compounds found in ginger, including gingerols and shogaols, have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that might reduce the levels of inflammation and oxidative stress — an imbalance in the body where you have too many free radicals, the unstable molecules that can cause premature aging and chronic disease, and too few antioxidants — in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and multiple sclerosis.
Avocados Are a Source of Healthy Fats and Antioxidants
Avocados are a great source of healthy monounsaturated fat and antioxidants, which can dampen your body’s inflammatory response. In fact, the anti-inflammatory properties of avocados are so strong that they may actually offset less healthy food choices.
A study published in the journal Food & Function looked at markers of inflammation in the blood of participants after they ate a hamburger either with or without about 2 ounces of avocado. The researchers found that those who ate the avocado saw a reduced inflammatory response compared with those who ate the hamburger alone.
Including avocado with the hamburger did not further increase participants’ blood triglyceride levels, despite the added fat and calories in the avocado.
A review published in October 2019 in Antioxidants (Basel) found that in some preliminary studies, a combination of avocado and soybean oils had anti-inflammatory properties that may have a beneficial effect on various inflammatory diseases or conditions that involve inflammation, such as osteoarthritis and periodontal disease.
Flaxseeds Provide Healthy Fats and Lignans
Flax is one of the richest sources of omega-3 fatty acids, making it a good alternative to fatty fish. Flaxseed also contains phytochemicals called lignans, which have often been touted for their anti-inflammatory effects.
The clinical evidence on lignans and inflammation is premature, though promising. In one study, published in November 2017 in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, a group of older adults was given a flaxseed-based lignan supplement to take for six months. While participants who took the supplement had lower blood pressure during the study period than those who took a placebo (inactive pill), no significant differences were seen in a variety of other outcomes, including blood markers of inflammation.
A review published in November 2019 in Advances in Nutrition found that flaxseed may have anti-inflammatory effects in the body, though the authors note that more research needs to be done to flesh out this link.
Walnuts Reduce Inflammatory Blood Markers
Walnuts are a good source of omega-3s and other healthy unsaturated fats. Like some other types of nuts, they’re also packed with antioxidants, fiber, and magnesium, all of which have important roles in regulating inflammation.
Research published in 2019 in Nutritional Neuroscience shows that in mice with an animal model of multiple sclerosis, walnut oil significantly reduced disease severity, inhibited plaque formation, and altered cytokine production, which makes it a potentially beneficial component of MS treatment for humans.
And a review published in July 2022 in the journal Antioxidants (Basel) found that eating walnuts not only reduced some signs of inflammation but also had other health benefits such as decreased triglyceride and cholesterol levels in middle-aged adults.
Olive Oil May Help Prevent Inflammation
There’s provisional evidence that extra-virgin olive oil — and in particular, components in it known as phenols — may help prevent the inflammatory processes involved in a variety of chronic diseases, according to an article published in November 2016 in the journal Food & Function.
A study on rats published in October 2019 in Nutrients found that extra-virgin olive oil may have potential to protect nerve cells against damage and degeneration, and that incorporating this healthy fat into your regular diet may improve general inflammation and be a useful tool in treatment of MS.
Olive oil is an important part of the Mediterranean diet, and an article published in March 2022 in Nutrients notes that olive oil may help protect the nervous system from oxidative stress, and that the Mediterranean diet as a whole reduces signs of inflammation. Supporting this line of thought is a study published online in October 2022 by Multiple Sclerosis journal, which showed that the more a person’s diet aligned with the Mediterranean diet, the less MS-related disability a person experienced.
Additional reporting by Quinn Phillips and Katherine Lee.