Effect of Fasting Mimicking Diet on Measures of Inflammatory Disease in Relapsing Multiple Sclerosis (RMS) Patients Treated With Standard Disease Modifying Therapies
University of Southern California
Summary
In the proposed study, investigators will assess the safety and feasibility of cycles of a fasting mimicking diet (FMD) and its effect on Multiple Sclerosis Quality of Life (MSQOL) in relapsing MS (RMS) patients treated with standard disease modifying therapies (FMDMS). To test the primary hypothesis, investigators will compare the composite quality of life score in terms of improvement in disability, fatigue, and cognitive function with the fasting protocol, as compared to a Mediterranean diet (control) group alone. Further, investigators hypothesize that the effects will remain for at least 6-months after the last FMD cycle. The Mediterranean diet (MD) has been chosen as the control diet to minimize baseline dietary differences among patients. It has been trialed for feasibility in Multiple Sclerosis patients and used in a previous human FMD trial for MS patients where a FMD followed by MD was shown to have positive effects on people with MS.
Description
The study design is a cross-over randomized, controlled trial that includes two arms in which all patients will be on a MD for twelve months. One group will be on MD alone for 6 months and then do 3 rounds of a standardized 7-day FMD dietary regimen every 2 months. The other group will do the 3 cycles of FMD during the first 6 months, and the subsequent 6 months on the MD alone. This will allow investigators to test FMD effects on a defined background diet as well as tease out the effects of that diet alone. In addition, investigators will be able to assess long term effects of a FMD on an aut…