Roy Swank discovered a dietary connection with multiple sclerosis in the late 1940s following studies in Norway. He instigated a study that followed a group of multiple sclerosis patients for 34 years. He wrote a book, The Multiple Sclerosis Diet Book: A Low-Fat Diet for the Treatment of M.S. 1
No other treatment plan has come close to achieving the results that Swank achieved.
Roy Swank was born in 1909 in Washington, USA. He obtained a Bachelor of Science from University of Washington in 1930 followed by a medical degree in 1935 as well as PhD in anatomy. He worked at Montreal Neurological Institute which resulted in trips to Norway.
In 1954, he returned to his native state, where he worked, for the rest of his long life, as the head of the Division of Neurology at Oregon Health & Sciences University. 2
This is how Swank described the development of MS in a patient.
Swank continues, describing how he came to the conclusion that multiple sclerosis is caused by diet. Note that this was in the 1950s.
One McDonald’s Big Mac with 2 meat patties contains 8 g of saturated fat and 52% of energy is derived from fat. 5
Swank followed 150 patients with multiple sclerosis over a period of 34 years between the years of 1949-1984.
Swank does note that:
As Swank explains, his findings do not generate much interest.
A study examined the relation between the mortality rates from multiple sclerosis for the years 1983–1989 obtained from 36 countries, and the intake of dietary fat and latitude. The more saturated fatty acids, animal fat, animal minus fish fat people consumed resulted in an increase in multiple sclerosis mortality.
The higher the ratio of polyunsaturated fatty acids to saturated fatty acids (P/S ratio) and the ratio of unsaturated fatty acids to saturated fatty acids (U/S ratio) resulted in a decrease of multiple sclerosis mortality. 9
A 1992 study examined multiple sclerosis and dairy consumption in 29 populations in 27 countries. The correlation between cow’s milk and multiple sclerosis was 0.836 – very strong correlation. A lower correlation (0.619) was found for cream and butter and no correlation found for cheese. 10
Below is a graph of twenty countries showing the relationship between dairy consumption and multiple sclerosis. Swank did show that saturated fats were implicated in multiple sclerosis. However, countries that have high dairy consumption tend to have high intake of fats and saturated fats. 11 12 Note the correlation coefficient (r) of 0.61 which is a good to very good correlation.
AU=Australia; CA=Canada; CH=Switzerland; CN=China; CZ=Czech Republic; DE=Germany; DK=Denmark; ES=Spain; FI=Finland; FR=France; GB=United Kingdom; IE=Ireland; IL=Israel; IN=India; IT=Italy; JP=Japan; KR=Korea, South; MN=Mongolia; MX=Mexico; NL=Netherlands; NO=Norway; SE=Sweden; SK=Slovakia; TR=Turkey; US=United States
Ancel Keys and his colleagues found similar results for heart disease in the Seven Countries Study. In 1973, Finland had a highest country death rate for men from cardiac heart disease and North Karelia had the highest rate in Finland. North Karelia is an inland farming community on the border with Russia. There was a significant difference in heart disease mortality rates in North Karelia in the east and the coastal fishing regions on the west coast. 13
Footnotes
- Swank, R. L. & Dugan, B. B. (1987) The Multiple Sclerosis Diet Book: A Low-Fat Diet for the Treatment of M.S. New York: Doubleday.
- Swank, R. L. (2008) Dr. Roy Laver Swank 1909-2008.
- McDougall, J. (1998) McDougall Interview with Dr. Roy Swank, MD | Dr. McDougall’s Health & Medical Center [online]. Available from: www.drmcdougall.com/health/education/health-science/featured-articles/articles/mcdougall-interview-with-dr-roy-swank-md/ (Accessed 24 July 2017).
- McDougall, J. (1998) McDougall Interview with Dr. Roy Swank, MD | Dr. McDougall’s Health & Medical Center [online]. Available from: www.drmcdougall.com/health/education/health-science/featured-articles/articles/mcdougall-interview-with-dr-roy-swank-md/ (Accessed 24 July 2017).
- U.S. Department of Agriculture (2018) USDA ERS – Food Consumption and Nutrient Intakes. McDonald’s Big Mac Item Number 21237
- Swank, R. (1991) Multiple sclerosis: fat-oil relationship. Nutrition (Burbank, Los Angeles County, Calif.). 7 (5), 368–376.
- Swank, R. L. & Duggan, B. B. (1990) Effect of low saturated fat diet in early and late cases of multiple sclerosis. The Lancet. 336 (8706), 37–39.
- McDougall, J. (1998) McDougall Interview with Dr. Roy Swank, MD | Dr. McDougall’s Health & Medical Center [online]. Available from: www.drmcdougall.com/health/education/health-science/featured-articles/articles/mcdougall-interview-with-dr-roy-swank-md/ (Accessed 24 July 2017).
- Esparza, M. et al. (1995) Nutrition, latitude, and multiple sclerosis mortality: an ecologic study. American Journal of Epidemiology. 142 (7), 733.
- Malosse, D. et al. (1992) Correlation between milk and dairy product consumption and multiple sclerosis prevalence: a worldwide study. Neuroepidemiology. 11 (4–6), 304–312.
- Canadian Dairy Information Center (2015) Per Capita Global Consumption of Fluid Milk – Canadian Dairy Information Centre (CDIC) [online]. Available from: www.dairyinfo.gc.ca(Accessed 20 June 2018).
- World Life Expectancy (n.d.) World Life Expectancy – Statistics Available from: www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/.
- Keys, A. et al. (1980) Seven Countries: A Multivariate Analysis of Death and Coronary Heart Disease. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: Harvard University Press.