No more ALS

The recent onslaught of videos of people taking part in the Ice Bucket Challenge has brought much-needed attention to the dreaded disease commonly called ALS, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis – also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease after the famous baseball player who had the disease in 1938.

My late aunt, an upbeat, effervescent woman whom I remember always having a smile on her face, developed the disease in her fifties, which was a common age for ALS to appear. My father developed ALS in his eighties,which was a very uncommon age to get this disease. Gratefully, he only lived with the disease for just over a year.

To say the prognosis for ALS was grim would be an understatement: rapidly increasing paralysis, difficulty swallowing, speaking, eating and drinking; and a life expectancy of three years on average. These are all symptoms of the motor function of the nervous system being gradually destroyed while the mind remains fully aware to the very end. It is a relatively painless, non-contagious and yet cruel disease.

I applaud the creativity and popularity of the Ice Bucket Challenge as a vehicle to spread awareness of the disease. While I am concerned that not enough money goes towards research (only 27%), I can attest that the assistance provided by the ALS Society of Canada is top-notch. The staff are caring, hard-working people and they do their best to help out during a very difficult time. (20% of funds raised is spent on care and support.) There is no cure for ALS and research is desperately needed but there is the immediate need to assist those living with the disease.

Prevention is also a consideration not to be overlooked. Emerging discoveries into the possible causes can tell us something about how we may be able to help prevent the disease. Prevention recommendations include:

• Avoiding pesticides by eating organic foods
• Avoiding MSG by eating whole, unprocessed foods (MSG is hidden in many packaged foods), and stay away from fast foods restaurants
• Detoxifying your body. Lead exposure has been found to be a contributor to the origin of this disease.
• Consuming foods rich in anti-oxidants, particularly vitamin E like nuts, green leafy vegetables, seeds, whole grains, tomatoes and carrots.
• Consuming foods high in B-12 including wild salmon, organic grass-fed beef, yogurt, eggs, clams, crab, fermented foods and nutritional yeast.
• Consuming colourful foods high in beta-carotene (sweet potato, carrots and squash) and lutein (deep green vegetables like kale and broccoli).

Detoxifying can be achieved in a number of ways, including getting regular exercise and choosing cleansing foods from the following list:

• artichokes, asparagus, beets, broccoli, cabbage, dandelions, kale, lemongrass, seaweed, wheatgrass, watercress
• avocados, apples, blueberries, cranberries, grapefruit, goji berries, lemons, pineapple
• basil, cilantro, cinnamon, ginger, garlic, parsley, turmeric
• Brazil nuts, flaxseed, hemp, sesame seeds
• olive oil
• clay
• filtered water

Both pesticides and MSG are FDA and Health Canada approved additives found in many foods even though they have many deleterious health consequences. And they are not always listed in the ingredients. Heavy metals such as lead can build up in the body and they will remain there unless we eat the right foods to remove them. 

Our bodies are equipped to transfer and eliminate toxins naturally. However, we need to learn how to strengthen and support this protective mechanism and, in some cases of toxicity, we have to take supplementary steps to detoxify. Without optimal detoxification, your body will not efficiently remove harmful toxins. The detoxification of stored toxins involves several stages and can depend on the individual's biological makeup. For more detailed information about detoxification, please consult a naturopath or holistic nutritionist to help you with your specific requirements.

Once again, disease prevention comes back to nutrition. Eating organic whole foods can be your preventive medicine to not only ALS but a myriad of other diseases as well. Let’s reduce the occurrence of this awful disease by doing what we can to keep our systems in balance.