S1E1 Overcoming MS is possible with Professor George Jelinek

Geoff Allix  00:02 

Hi, my name is Geoff Allix and I’ll be your host for the Overcoming MS. Living well with Multiple Sclerosis podcast. I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2015 after many years of odd symptoms that seemingly had no cause when I was tested, my father had MS and died at age 54. So I was obviously concerned, but was repeatedly told I didn’t have MS. I was only sent for test for MS after having double vision with no apparent cause, so that I wouldn’t worry about the symptoms. I was then told that I almost certainly had MS in May 2015, before formal diagnosis took another four months. And it was in this time that we, myself and my wife, tried to find out as much as we could about the disease  and what can be done about it. And it was then that my wife actually discovered the OMS and the seven step recovery program. I started the program immediately because it’s based on science and research, and also it was clear it was clearly interested in helping people rather than making money which some other approaches I found. were less altruistic, if you like, and OMS has removed my fear that I’ll follow the same path as my father and it’s given me a real sense of optimism for the future. The Living Well with MS podcast is designed to help you better understand and adopt the OMS seven step recovery program. Whether you’re new to it, you’re an experienced OMSer or someone who wants to find out about what options are open to them for living a better healthier life after being diagnosed with MS. Each month, we’ll bring you an episode connected to one of the steps of the OMS seven step recovery program. And rather than having to listen to me talk for the whole time, I’ll be introducing a guest who’s an expert in that particular field, or an OMSer or who will share their personal experiences, the ups and the downs on their journey to recovery. I’d like to introduce our first and most agree our most high profile guest Professor George Jelinek. Professor Jelinek is the founder of OMS and was until very recently the head of the the Neuroepidemiology Unit at the University of Melbourne. Before his work in neuroepidemiology, he was the first professor of Emergency Medicine in Australasia, and once awarded the ACEM medal in 2003, the highest individual honor in speciality of Emergency Medicine in Australia and New Zealand. Since moving to neuroepidemiology, he was appointed chief editor in neuroepidemiology for the leading Medline index neurology journal Frontiers in Neurology has been recognized by the mainstream by twice being a finalist for Australian of the Year. Professor Jelinek  had already lost his mother to MS and 18 years later was diagnosed himself, but resolved as a qualified doctor to study all of the available medical literature to find the best way to live with MS. It turns out, there’s a treasure trove of existing research. And this along with more up to date studies, forms the foundation of the OMS approach. And so without further ado, welcome, Professor George Jelinek. 

 

George Jelinek  02:56 

Thanks, Geoff, really nice to be here. 

 

Geoff Allix  02:58 

And great to have you. I’d like to ask a little bit to start with, could you just tell us a bit about your background, your MS diagnosis and the work you do for OMS?  

 

George Jelinek  03:13 

I guess my background really that’s relevant to this is mostly about MS. And the fact that like many of the people listening, I was diagnosed with MS. For me, it’s quite a long time ago. Now it’s nearly 20 years. So it was in my mid 40s, at a period of my life, when I was really busy, really flat out at work and really wasn’t paying terribly much attention to my health. And like a lot of people again, who are listening, I had a close relative with MS and my mother died of the illness at 58. So being a medical doctor, in practice in the emergency department, I knew what to expect after diagnosis of MS. So I was understandably pretty devastated. And I really couldn’t see any future for myself after that diagnosis and certainly no way out of what looked to be an inevitable decline into into progressive disability. But fortunately, I was in academic medicine, and one of my jobs was to judge the worth of scientific literature and scientific research. And I was an editor of a major journal, and it gave me the tools to actually look through the medical literature. And then I didn’t initially feel there was any hope at all. And it was a number of sort of serendipitous events that led me to actually have a look at a couple of the papers that were in the literature, and I found Swank’s paper very early on and then that really opened up a Pandora’s box for just paper after paper after paper that within a matter of weeks convinced me that I could potentially stay well, if I could change my lifestyle. And that’s what led me to put the OMS program together. And that’s what’s led me to be, well, nearly 20 years on, I’m actually as fit and well as I’ve ever been in my life right now. 

 

Geoff Allix  05:22 

You mentioned Swank’s paper there. What briefly, was that research? 

 

George Jelinek  05:28 

Well, I think that’s, although it’s given very little airtime by most clinicians in the air. I think that’s a pivotal piece of research in the MS literature, undertaken by no lightweight in neurology. I mean, Professor Roy Swank was Professor of Neurology, finally at Oregon, but in a number of other universities along the way, and he devoted his life really to studying his hypothesis that animal fat was the driving force behind people getting MS and behind their progression. So the paper he studied, the one I found initially was a study in The Lancet in 1990. And for those of you who are familiar with the medical journal hierarchy, the Lancet, it’s right up there. It’s one of the big four medical journals in the world, highest ranked. 

 

Geoff Allix  06:24 

It’s the one that I’ve heard of medical. So yeah, 

 

George Jelinek  06:28 

I guess being being a Brit too, it’s published out of the UK, and it’s a long standing journal, huge impact factor, publishes the best research in the world. And to see this paper published in The Lancet actually surprised me when I read its content. Because what Swank had done was this extraordinary study over 35 years where he had followed 150 people with MS who he had asked to stay on a dramatically reduced animal fat diet. And compared those who were able to stay on the diet against those who are unable to stay on the diet, and found that those who could reduce their  animal fat, their saturated fat intake, to an absolute minimum to below 15 to 20 grams of saturated fat a day that compares to maybe 100 that most people in the West are eating per day, those people had dramatically better outcomes, and the great majority were fit still at 35 years after diagnosis, whereas the majority who couldn’t stick to the diet were either dead or bed bound. And I looked at that and thought, that is pretty compelling evidence, even if it wasn’t conducted in the way most modern trials are conducted, of course, it started in 1949. So how could it be? 

 

Geoff Allix  07:51 

I mean, yeah, I personally find a little bit of frustration about the way that they have to do medical testing. And how do you do a double blind, placebo when you’re asking someone whether they’re eating beef or not? It’s a big giveaway. 

 

George Jelinek  08:12 

It’s actually a thing that’s perplexing us at the moment in the research unit, at the University of Melbourne, we’re trying to put together a randomized control trial. And to do it in a way that satisfies the critics of research is really difficult. I mean, it’s really simple to get two groups of people randomly allocate them to take either an active pill or an inactive pill. And how easy is that research design? It’s very easy to trick people into believing they’re taking something that might be helping them and therefore account for the placebo effect. But how do you do that when you’re asking people to make very significant lifestyle changes? And I mean, they’re aware of what they’re doing. The researchers are aware of what they’re doing, it’s almost impossible to adequately blind that or mask that from either the participants or the researchers. So we’re struggling with all of those methodological issues at the moment in trying to get this kind of study out. Because, frankly, most researchers in the area, even though the research is congruent and very comprehensive to date around diet, they won’t be convinced until they see evidence of that kind of gold standard. 

 

Geoff Allix  09:30 

And so recently, I saw that you stepped down as the head of the Neuroepidemiology Unit. So just wanted to ask, why did you step down and what are you going to be doing next? 

 

George Jelinek  09:41 

Well, I guess I’ve actually only been there three years and it’s been a fantastic three years. I’ve really enjoyed this shift in my career away from unloading ambulances and helicopters at the front door of major hospitals, to actually getting paid to come to work to think and to really make a contribution to the intellectual, scientific endeavor in medicine, and it’s been fantastic, but I guess I’m the first to say that I’m not young anymore. I’m 64. I’m certainly fit and healthy and well, and one thing I am aware of is how quickly that can change for people. Having seen that across my career and the sort of people that come to emergency departments, and I really do want to make sure that I leave myself plenty of time to enjoy all the things I want to do in life, in addition to doing this really important work. So basically, I cut my hours down by about a third. And at the same time, I thought it was really in the interests of the unit to have a bit of renewal, and have a deputy head Associate Professor Tracey Weiland step up and take on directorship of the unit. That’s going to bring a whole infusion of new ideas and ways of doing things. Tracey is an absolutely gifted academic with a background of a PhD in psychology and neuroscience. And she’s going to be a wonderful director there. 

 

Geoff Allix  11:11 

And so the research will continue. 

 

George Jelinek  11:14 

Absolutely. Yeah, it’s going to continue and Tracey will expand the repertoire, I’m sure. But the thrust of it is still very much around researching the factors that impact on the progression of MS and also increasingly the prevention of people developing MS in the first place. 

 

Geoff Allix  11:40 

Excellent. So to go on to the Overcoming MS approach, could you give me a quick overview of OMS? 

 

George Jelinek  11:49 

Yeah, I’ve put it together in the most recent book, which was released in 2016. As a seven step program, really, to try and give the impression in the sense that it’s not a difficult thing to do it really is, is a fairly simple stepwise approach. And I’ve put the steps in order of what I think from the literature are probably the most important things in the hierarchy. And most importantly, diet, in my view really comes at the top even though there’s some debate around that by the clinicians in the area. So essentially, a plant based whole foods diet plus seafood is the diet that comes out of the literature as being the most helpful for people with MS both in preventing the illness but more importantly, in once you have it and in reducing your chances of it progressing. And the rate of it progressing. The second is getting adequate sunlight and or vitamin D. And in many parts of the world like Melbourne where I’m sitting right now, and there’s big, thick thunder clouds rolling overhead in the middle of winter, you don’t get a lot of vitamin D by going outside. Mind you, I was out in the pool today doing a kilometer and a half, in what was then sunshine, the UV index was only about one or two. So I didn’t get a lot of vitamin D. So most people need to supplement with vitamin D as well. But there seems to be some independent benefit from both direct sunlight on the skin and vitamin D supplements. The third is exercise and regular exercise. I think this is probably the most proven of all the therapies in MS. And there’s now a wealth of literature to show that most particularly it influences quality of life. So people who exercise regularly in properly constructed randomized control trials have better quality of life, they also have less depression, and less fatigue. And we’ve recently published a review from our unit to show that the trials indicate that the one of the best therapies for fatigue is exercise. And meditation is another really helpful one. And, you know, it’s exercise of all sorts, and whatever’s within the capacity of the individual. Obviously, some people are more disabled than others, and so they’ll need to get a particularly tailored exercise program. The fourth element is meditation or some other form of stress reduction. And we at OMS we generally recommend Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, Mindfulness Based meditation, because it’s so mainstream, well proven, and there’s good work in MS on it. But there are other techniques too. And some people choose to use other forms of stress reduction, things like yoga or tai chi and so on. 

 

Geoff Allix  14:51 

So that was the point in the book actually where I was going, Is this from the original book that I had originally the first edition. Everything’s very, very scientific. And then and then it goes to meditation, which seems very non scientific sort of hippie-ish in a way the sort of mindfulness and the yoga Do you think that is? So is there any science behind that side of things? 

 

George Jelinek  15:19 

Well, it’s interesting that it’s viewed that way. And I think it’s been a little bit of a problem that mainstream Western medicine has, despite the wealth of scientific research behind it has found it has been rather reluctant to embrace meditation as a form of medical therapy. And I think the pioneering work on all of this came from Jon Kabat-Zinn, in the US. And he’s actually been running Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction clinics at one of the big hospitals in the US, since the 1970s now and published a wealth of, of data. But in MS there’s a number of really good trials on it. Grossman from Basel, they do a proper well constructed randomized control trial 150, people with MS randomized to usual care or usual care, plus Mindfulness Based meditation and found much better quality of life, less depression, less fatigue, for those who were able to sustain the mindfulness based meditation. And that persisted to the six month point at which they concluded the study. So more recently, there’s been an online version of that which published in Multiple Sclerosis Journal just this year, to show that it’s effective when it’s done online as well. So I mean, I think now there are something like two and a half thousand papers on mindfulness meditation in the medical literature showing some benefit in various different conditions, particularly in chronic disease. So I think we can safely say there is a strong evidence base now behind meditation, and it’s a growing evidence base. 

 

Geoff Allix  17:10 

So okay, sorry, I stopped you on the seven steps. 

 

George Jelinek  17:12 

And the next one might actually warrant a comment as well, from me, Geoff, in that it’s, it’s taking medications, if required. And I know that a number of the other groups around the place who advocate a sort of healthy lifestyle approach to managing MS don’t recommend taking medication. But my view has really always been if something has been shown to work, then why wouldn’t you do it? And the only caveat for medications is the issue around side effects. So what we’ve described so far that the first four pillars of the program, all have positive side effects, there is no negative side effect to eating healthy, to exercising, to meditating to taking vitamin D, and so on. But with medication, it’s a real question of one, do you need to take it as in are the other elements of the program sufficient to keep you well? Or do you need something as well? And if so, which one do should you consider taking and when, and they’re really important questions. And at the moment, there’s a bit of a rush to get people onto medications, by mainstream neurology, but I think largely, that’s because there’s not a good appreciation of the value of lifestyle in achieving stability for people with MS. So if you’ve only got one real tool to apply, then naturally, people want to use that tool immediately and get people onto it quickly. But actually, for most people with MS, there’s being such a chronic condition, there’s plenty of time to give this adequate thought and consideration before rushing into a medication choice. Let me just say that one of the key things about our program is that it is mainstream. It’s not an alternative medicine program or complementary medicine program. It’s a mainstream secondary prevention approach to managing MS. And I mean, the best example that illustrates that is that our the Neuroepidemiology Unit and that’s researching this approach is located within the School of Population and Global Health within the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at Australia’s leading university, the University of Melbourne So, it’s very clear that we’re operating from within the mainstream of medicine and not from without it. 

 

Geoff Allix  19:51 

I think that answered it well, because I have found that because my on my initial diagnosis, obviously you go to it Google, Bing, your primary resource. And there, I’d say all the other main approaches were to not take any medication. And then the other big difference was that there would be some financial aspect to the other approaches At minimum buying a book, but at maximum subscribing financially. And that was one of the big differences I noticed with OMS was not only was there not a monthly payment, but it was they would actually send me the books for free and see and realize, okay, this isn’t someone trying to take my money, they’re actually trying to make you better. 

 

George Jelinek  20:41 

Yeah, I’ve felt that strongly since. Well, you know, as soon as I got involved in this and realized I needed to make it public, I mean, I had my own little formula, stack up at home on the fridge for how I was going to live the rest of my life and started to feel increasingly guilty walking past it every day thinking, I’m the only person who knows about this. And there are so many people out there who will never know about this, because they don’t have the same sort of skill set that I had to look at the medical literature. So I thought I really have to bring it to people’s attention. And I was really totally internet naive in 1999, as probably a lot of the world was. And so the only way I could really think of doing it was to write a book about it, which was the first book that I wrote, “Taking Control of MS.” And subsequently, our group has set up a charity, not for profit charity. And one of the key things about it is that we make this information free to everyone wherever possible, we set up free books schemes and of course, these are based generally on people making philanthropic donations to OMS, so that we can afford to do that. So yeah, it’s a central core principle of OMS, that that this information is free to all comers. And it’s the very least I feel I can do for the for the MS community. 

 

Geoff Allix  22:06 

So that was, what do we get to five? I think. 

 

George Jelinek  22:09 

Yeah, we got to five, six was, and is preventing family members from getting MS. And this goes back to the issue of genetics in MS. And there’s no question that the first degree relatives of people with MS are at significantly higher risk of getting the disease. So it’s somewhere between 20 and 40 times higher risk than the rest of the population. And obviously, that depends on where you live, what the background risk is, but say you lived in Canada or something where the risk might be as high as one in 300. That takes it up to a very substantial risk one in 20 to one in 40 times that risk gets you up to maybe one and 15, one and 10 for the children of people with MS. But also not to forget the brothers and sisters of people with MS. Because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked to someone who with MS and then found out years later that one or even two of their siblings have subsequently been diagnosed, when potentially they could have reduced that risk very dramatically if they’d known about what to do. And that’s why I put this in the book as one of the sort of key steps to try and influence those around you who have a high risk to make some changes. And the changes are really simple. There’s now a pretty strong body of evidence around this around not smoking, around getting adequate sunlight, particularly when children are between the ages of six and 15. Making sure that vitamin D level is adequate. Even if they are not getting enough sunlight, you can do that through vitamin D supplements. getting enough exercise and that’s been shown in independent studies to modify the risk of getting MS. And the last one which is a fairly recent one is plant based Omega 3 consumption has been shown to influence the risk so not fish oil, but what we’ve been sort of advocating right from the beginning flaxseed oil or other plant based Omega 3 supplements have been shown to reduce the risk of getting MS. So it’s fairly simple and probably more easily someone could adopt the whoel OMS program if they felt so inclined. And they would tick all those boxes and give themselves really the best chance of of not ever getting MS. 

 

Geoff Allix  24:42 

My neurologist actually said cuz I’ve explained what I’m doing and he said well, it’s not proven in any way he calls it he calls it the Jelinek approach. So he is aware and but he said at the end of the day this isn’t proven for multiple sclerosis but if you have a whole food plant based diet, and you are doing meditation, and you’re keeping your vitamin D levels up, and you’re doing exercise, then your risk factors for basically all of the Western diseases and illnesses will be lower. He said, you’ve got a bet you’ve got a lower chance of getting cancer, heart disease, and so on, and so on, and so on and so on. And so he said, ultimately, if you’re happy doing it, there is no downside. 

 

George Jelinek  25:33 

Absolutely right. And the the little bit that’s missing in your neurologist’s understanding is that he hasn’t, or he or she hasn’t yet seen the link between MS and those other diseases. That what our group has long postulated that MS is really another one of those typical western lifestyle diseases like cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure, type two diabetes, and so on. And the evidence is now growing by the day, that it’s just another typical western disease. And that the same approach as we adopt for those other diseases will make a difference both to your risk of getting this disease and of it progressing just as it does with the other Western diseases. 

 

Geoff Allix  26:20 

And I think, I think we’ve got one left I think number 7. 

 

George Jelinek  26:23 

really, I’ve called Change Your Life, for Life. The point I was trying to make here was that one, and this is a, this is something exciting to do, it’s not a burden. Sometimes it takes something really big, like a serious diagnosis, to give you the impetus to make big changes to your life, because many of us just kind of plod along and we can notice ourselves getting unhealthier. Our life perhaps not being all that enjoyable, and so on. But a serious diagnose like this actually gives you a bit of an excuse to say, “Okay, I’m going to make some really big changes here, and I’m gonna see what I can, what I can achieve in my life with in my health” and, and I’ve actually found personally that I feel I’m living a much better life a much more authentic life a much more enjoyable life, I feel healthier, happier than I really was 20 years ago, before I was diagnosed. And the really important second part of that equation is its full life. It’s not a diet or a sort of a fad, this is actually something you change, and you never go back. And there’s every chance that if you can make those changes, and then sustain them for life, that you’ll live a long, healthy, happy life, just like most people, you know, aspire to. 

 

Geoff Allix  27:53 

So we’ve talked about lifestyle factors and mainstream medicine. So do you think it’s likely that lifestyle factors will come into mainstream treatment? Because I saw some information about a workshop you attended recently in Australia, where they were looking at lifestyle factors in the mainstream? So do you think it’s likely that that it might become more of a recommended mainstream treatment? 

 

George Jelinek  28:18 

I think there’s absolutely no question Geoff, I was invited to that workshop, which is run by MS Research Australia, which is the peak body for MS research in Australia, I think they allocate somewhere around $15 to $20 million worth of research funds every year for MS research in this country. And they finally really have have reached the point where they’ve had such a clamoring from the consumer base, and the evidence has been piling up about lifestyle to the extent where they actually felt they had to convene a workshop to bring together what they considered were the best research minds in the area to talk and discuss how we might progress this research agenda in this country. And earlier in the podcast, I was talking about the difficulties we’re experiencing and trying to put together a randomized control trial around this. And actually were able to. I spoke a lot about that at the at the whole day meeting. And we had some of the leading researchers in MS. Not only in Australia, but in the world there who were able to provide a number of ideas, and in fact, a number of them have agreed to collaborate with us on the research that we’re progressing with. So I have absolutely no doubt, as I said on the day, this is an idea whose time has come. And it’s just a question now of building the appropriate research and evidence base that will enable it to be translated into clinical practice. And I think that I can reasonably say within my lifetime I would expect many aspects of this to be standard practice. I mean, a number of them already are. You know when I first started talking about vitamin D 19 years ago, it was thought to be a little bit weird a little bit wacky, it’s pretty uncommon now for someone to visit a neurologists with MS and not have their vitamin D level tested, and not be talked to about vitamin D supplements. Similarly, with smoking, I mean that really 19 years ago wasn’t on the radar. Now, I think most people would have that discussion with their neurologist, if they happen to smoke, or if there’s smoking in the family. I think the key one that might take a little while is diet. And for some reason, neurologists seem particularly resistant to the idea that diet might affect brain disease, which seems a little odd to me, because I’ve spent a lot of my career treating people with stroke. And the key determinant of whether or not you’re at risk of stroke is the diet you eat. That’s like other vascular disease. That’s the key risk factor. So it seems a little bit like a blind spot for many clinicians in the area currently. But I think, with perseverance, and putting together the right sort of research, we can get to a point where people are confident to prescribe diet as an appropriate therapy for people with MS. 

 

Geoff Allix  31:28 

Okay, I think there’s a lot of resistance amongst patients as well, I find that with diet, I think they’ll accept most of the other things. But if you take their cheese away, then that’s a red line. And I go to America quite a lot. And there, they have an obsession that you have to have cheese on pizza. Yeah, because actually, I find pizza quite an easy thing to get. There’s pizza restaurants everywhere, and most of them freshly cook it. And if you ask for a pizza, which is freshly made, whole foods plant based, then you can kind of tick all the boxes and actually eat out. But then they say, Oh, you don’t want cheese? And I said no, they go we’ve got vegan cheese. It’s just really nice without cheese. 

 

George Jelinek  32:14 

Yeah, absolutely. And there’s no need to eat fake cheese, fake meat, any of the fake products, because the OMS diet is so enjoyable in its own right. And actually, most people find that after they’ve been on it for a while, they really wouldn’t go back. And I mean, for me nearly 20 years on, I can’t bear the the smell of meat, either cooked or raw. And I certainly wouldn’t go near cheese, I really couldn’t bear the thought of putting that in my mouth. And I think a lot of these things are just habits, you know, we, we think that we really liked something, but actually, we’re just habituated to having certain things. And once you change the habit, the new habit’s just as hard to break as the old ones. It would be like putting a spoon of sugar in your tea and then stopping and you find you couldn’t dare having sugar in your tea anymore. 

 

Geoff Allix  33:06 

Yeah. So I think you’ve done a fantastic job of summarizing the approach. I’ve been through a couple of additions to the book and sort of realized that there, it’s not set in stone. This is a continual research and things changed. So there was one you mentioned about flaxseed oil rather than fish oil. And, and also there was some things on the the OMS website about vitamin K2 was a recent one, that there may be a lot of evidence that K2 with vitamin D is a useful supplement. So I just wanted to ask, where do you think there might be developments? And is there any sort of latest news in the in the approach? 

 

George Jelinek  33:57 

Well, one of the things about our approach is that it’s evidence based, it’s science based, and the nature of science is that it changes as new evidence comes in, and then you have a hypothesis and then you challenge it, and you often have to refine it. Over the years. It’s interesting how little really has changed from the original that I put up 19 years ago, as you say, certain things have but they’re relatively minor in the scheme of things. For me, the the biggest breakthroughs aren’t going to come in some new drug or in some particular little molecule that turns off a signaling pathway or, or things like that, I think. I think the real change is going to come when we have enough evidence to convince clinicians that lifestyle is the key and when more and more people are prescribed that as a definitive mainstream therapy for this condition, I think that’s that’s our best chance of actually making a big impact on a population basis for this disease, not only in changing the face of how people progress, but in actually reducing the incidence of it. I mean, it’s conceivable we could drop the incidence of this disease, at least by half or two thirds. If we target the people who are relatives of people who have the disease, and encourage them to make lifestyle modification. I mean, I think that’s where we actually have the biggest possibility of making a change to this illness. So I know a lot of the organizations talk about searching for a cure. But it’s a bit like saying, well, what’s the cure for heart disease? Well, it sort of seems an absurd question. These days, given what we know about heart disease. Sure, people had surgery for heart disease, and they have medical therapies for heart disease. But we know we can prevent it. And we know we can stop it progressing, if people make really significant changes to their lifestyle. And I think actually, that is the answer in MS as well. 

 

Geoff Allix  36:13 

So we’re looking more at prevention than cure. 

 

George Jelinek  36:16 

Absolutely, yeah. 

 

Geoff Allix  36:19 

Okay. I’d like to thank you for your time. And that’s been a fantastic summary of the OMS approach. These topics we’ll go into more detail on in coming months. But I just again, want to say thank you very much for being the first guest we’ve had on the OMS podcast. And thank you for your time and dedication to the OMS approach, and for joining us on this first podcast. 

 

George Jelinek  36:51 

Great, thanks, Geoff. And good luck with the rest of the series. I’m sure it’ll go really well. 

 

Geoff Allix  36:57 

Thank you. With that, I’d like to thank you all for listening. Hope you got some useful information for your OMS journey. Remember, there’s a wealth of information at overcomingms.org. Once again, that’s overcomingms.org. There you can find OMS friendly recipes and exercise tips. You can connect with other OMSers in your local area via our OMS circles program, and learn about the latest research going on in the MS world generally, I’m related to OMS specifically. I encourage you to register on the site and stay informed about the latest news and updates. In our next episode, we’ll be discussing the research behind the OMS recovery program. And I’d encourage you to subscribe to this podcast to keep up to date with the episodes. And please feel free to share this podcast with others who might find it of value. Thanks again for listening. And thanks for joining me on this journey to Overcoming MS and living well with multiple sclerosis. I’m Geoff Allix. And I’ll catch up with you again on the next episode.