Changing your lifestyle changes MS

Lifestyle changes have been shown to benefit people with MS

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Positive lifestyle choices in people with MS can support their mental and physical wellbeing. This gives us all hope!

Lifestyle has been shown to have a number of benefits: it prevents relapse, promotes and preserves brain function, slows disease progression, improves symptoms and efficacy of treatment, as well as providing people with a sense of control and agency. This is important, as it turn instils hope, impacts mood and improves quality of life. That’s why we want everyone impacted by MS to understand the power of lifestyle.

Preserving brain function in people with MS is essential [1], whilst supporting positive mental and emotional health can reduce the impact of symptoms like pain and fatigue, and improve mood and cognition. Read on to find out more about how a healthy lifestyle can benefit you

Lifestyle can slow your MS progression and improve treatment outcomes

Research has found that positive lifestyle choices can directly impact disease activity such as reducing relapses or slowing disease progression. For example, smoking cessation has been found to slow the rate of motor disability deterioration [6] whilst regular participation in exercise may impact relapse rate [7]

Lifestyle can support your symptom management

A multi-pronged approach of lifestyle change, therapeutic interventions and medication can help you manage your symptoms, and this is clearly established in the updates to the MS NICE guidance [13] [14]. Positive changes like improving sleep or nutritional quality, better stress management or physical movement have been found to improve symptoms like fatigue, pain, mood and cognition [15], whilst exercise is more effective in managing fatigue than medication [16], [17].

The benefits of lifestyle provide hope

Sharing the evidence for lifestyle as a meaningful form of treatment and management when combined with therapeutic interventions and optimised medication is an incredible message of hope. This can motivate self-management and improve quality of life [18], reduce burden on healthcare services [19], and encourage people with MS to make positive lifestyle choices for the long-term [20].

Positive lifestyle choices reduce other illnesses, improving your outcomes

We know that some conditions [2] are linked with worsened disease progression and increased relapses [3]. Metabolic syndrome, for example, has been linked with increased disability, worsened progression and reduced disease-modifying treatment efficacy [4]. By encouraging healthy lifestyle choices as part of holistic management, we can reduce the likelihood of people developing other conditions, or minimise their impact [5].