The Longevity Formula

The Power of the Right Diet: How Dr. Terry Wahls Overcame MS and Transformed Medicine

• Dr. Brandon Crawford • Season 2 • Episode 43

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In this insightful conversation, Dr. Terry Wahls shares her personal and professional journey, starting from a challenging multiple sclerosis diagnosis that severely impacted her mobility and overall health. Faced with the limitations of conventional medical treatments, she embarked on a quest to find alternative solutions, leading her to develop the groundbreaking Wahls Protocol.

This comprehensive approach to health focuses on optimizing cellular function through a combination of strategies, with a strong emphasis on nutrition, mitochondrial health, and lifestyle changes. Dr. Wahls delves into the science behind her protocol, explaining how specific nutrients and lifestyle factors can create a supportive environment for cellular health, leading to improved energy levels, cognitive function, and overall well-being.

The Wahls Protocol has shown promising results not only for individuals with chronic illnesses like multiple sclerosis but also for those seeking to optimize their health and prevent disease. Dr. Wahls discusses the importance of a personalized approach, as individual needs may vary depending on genetic factors, lifestyle, and environmental exposures.


Key Takeaways

  • Mitochondrial health is crucial for overall well-being and recovery from chronic illness.
  • Skepticism from the medical community is common when introducing new health concepts.
  • The Wahls Protocol includes dietary changes, stress management, and physical activity.
  • Creating a supportive environment for cells can lead to significant health improvements.
  • Nutrition plays a vital role in managing chronic diseases and optimizing health.
  • The future of medicine should focus on prevention and creating healthy lifestyles.

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For more information, resources, and podcast episodes, visit https://tinyurl.com/3ppwdfpm

Dr. Terry Wahls: Local MS. Society chapter wanted me to talk to them. I said, sure. I got interviewed by the clinical advisory committee who thought my message was dangerous, which was, you know, you gotta improve your diet, work with your medical team. Uh uh, and I got banned. 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: How did you connect the dots to really understand that the is something to really focus on.

Dr. Terry Wahls: And so now we've got a, a big study, a a two year study that's underway comparing a ketogenic diet, a Paleolithic diet and usual diet with information about the dietary guidelines diet. It's a two year intervention. We anticipate having our last study visit in July of 2026. We have 162 people in one of the largest, longest studies and certainly the largest that has.

MRIs as part of the study. 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: It's met with this open air of skepticism and how dare you and why would you? You know what I mean? 

Dr. Terry Wahls: We are all like that. 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yes. 

Dr. Terry Wahls: All of us understand the world based on our previous experiences, and if there's new information that doesn't fit with my understanding of the world, I ignore it and you ignore it.

And all the listeners, we ignore that as well, 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: But can this be applied to other autoimmune conditions or other disease processes?

Dr. Terry Wahls: It's been very helpful for many rheumatologic autoimmune problems. Lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, uh uh, Sjogren's, psoriatic arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease. They discovered my work, implemented the concepts, and the quality of life dramatically improves for that child or that young adult.

Or that, you know, older adult. It's not that they don't still have cystic fibrosis or in this case, this, ah, one child had Mitchell Syndrome, a severe demyelinating disease. What they discover is that.

Voice Over: Welcome to the Longevity Formula with Dr. Brandon Crawford. Let's explore the new era of wellness. 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Longevity Formula podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Brandon. Crawford in today's episode. This is truly something special. I had the absolute honor of sitting down with someone whose workout followed and respected for years.

Dr. Terry Walls, Dr. Walls, was diagnosed with progressive multiple sclerosis, told she was on a path to permanent disability, and yet she flipped that narrative. Through deep research, a mitochondria focused lifestyle and relentless curiosity, she not only halted her decline, she reversed it. And in the process, she created the Walls protocol, which has now helped thousands reclaim their health.

In our short conversations, we dive into the science, the setbacks, and the emotional moments that fueled her transformation. We talk about nutrition, resilience, functional medicine, and the powerful idea that healing doesn't always come in a prescription bottle. This one's not just for people with MS or autoimmune conditions.

It's for anyone who wants to understand what's truly possible when we give the body what it needs to thrive. Dr. Walls, thank you so much for joining us. I am such a fan of your work. I've been actually studying the Walls protocol and I've been implementing several different things that you've brought to the world ever since I've been working clinically with patients.

Those that are not very aware of your journey, your story, do you mind introducing them? Do you mind giving us the rundown? Sure. 

Dr. Terry Wahls: So in 2000, I developed a weakness in my left leg while I'm out walking with my wife, I, and a few days later I see the neurologist who begins the workup. We do an MRI of the brain, the spinal cord, a spinal tap, a bunch of nerve conduction velocities, and he tells me I have relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis.

I do my research. I find the best MS Center in the country. I take this newest drugs now I'm aged 45. Within three years, I've converted to the secondary progressive phase of the illness. I take mitoxantrone, I take Tysabri, the new biologic. Neither drug helps. I have them switch to CellCept and that's when I begin experimenting on myself, reading the basic science.

And I will eventually create a supplement cocktail. Super helpful in slowing my my decline. And I'm really focused on creating supplements for my mitochondria because I think mitochondria are what's driving disability. By 2007, I can no longer sit up. I, I have trigeminal neuralgia. The electrical face pains are relentlessly more severe and it's very clear that I'm destined to become bed by my illness.

Probably demented by my illness and probably dying with intractable horrific electrical face pain. Now, fortunately for me, I discover the Institute for Functional Medicine. I take their course in neuro protection. I have a longer list of supplements and I discover electro stimulation of muscles.

And I convinced my physical therapist to begin that, add that to my physical therapy. Then I have this big aha in Dr. Crawford. I'm laughing at myself how long it took to have this aha, what if I redesigned the paleo diet that I've been following already for five years based on this long list of supplements.

So that's a few more months of research. And I have this new, very structured paleolithic diet. And I start that new way of eating. Within two months, it's very clear my fatigue is markedly reduced. My mental clarity is improving. And my physical therapist says, you know, Terry, you're definitely getting stronger advances my exercises.

I, and in four months I am walking in the hospital with my walking sticks, and then I in May and, and this is about eight months into electrical stem six months into this new diet, I. Tell my family want to try riding my bike for the first time in six years. And I, I, we, we all get in a position my son's gonna jog alongside on the left, my daughter on the right.

So he's 16. She's 13. Jackie will jog along behind and, and I bike around the block. And of course I haven't done that in six years. My, that big 16-year-old boy, he's crying. The 13-year-old girl, she's crying. Jackie's crying. I'm crying. You know, and if I really relive that moment, tears still come back to my eyes.

I and I, I bike a little bit more every day. In October, Jackie signs signs us up for the curry ride, which is 18.5 miles. I. And I crossed that finish line, and of course, we're all crying again. And it really changes how I think about disease and health. It will change the way I practice medicine and it will ultimately change the focus of my research.

And I've since made it my mission Dr. Crawford, to teach others physicians and clinicians how to use these concepts in their clinical practice. And I teach the public how to use these concepts to better manage their complex chronic disease states. 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Absolutely. And the world is a better place for it.

For sure. Your story is just so amazing and you know, we have a saying in our practice, we, we say never accept, never. And that's definitely the, the mindset and the attitude that, you know, you kind of hear brewing just in your, your story there. I am curious because I'm a, I'm a photobiomodulation guy.

I've, I love laser and light therapy and obviously that. Leads me to read a lot about mitochondria and have to study the mitochondria. How did you connect the dots to really understand that the mitochondria was something to really focus on? 

Dr. Terry Wahls: Well, when I, when I was seeing the relentless decline. I decided to start reading the basic science for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's Disease, a LS.

And in all of those diseases I saw that mitochondrial dysfunction, an inadequate generation of a TP, was the driver of atrophy and disability. I and I, I really only had two relapses in, in my disease course, so it was the progressive phase I, and so at first, I, I focused in on. Supplements for my mitochondria.

And then, you know, I discover functional medicine. There they were, the course I took on neuroprotection, talked a lot about mitochondria. So I was super jazzed and super jazzed about all of the supplements, you know, so I had a much longer list of supplements. And then but you know, really the magic happens when I restructure that paleolithic diet.

And as I recovered. I my heat tolerance, you know, greatly improved. So then I went back to taking saunas and I'd eventually switched to a near infrared and red light sauna. And I do red light therapy. Yes, as, as part of my self-care. And that's part of what I teach my, my tribe to utilize as well.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: That's amazing. I'm curious with. As you were navigating this, were you met with a lot of skepticism from your colleagues or. How 

Dr. Terry Wahls: did that go? Oh yeah, of course. So when I first started, you know, talk, talking, it was to the organic grocery store. Then the local MS society chapter wanted me to talk to them and said, sure.

I got interviewed by the clinical advisor committee who thought my message was dangerous, which was, you know, you gotta improve your diet, work with your medical team. And I got banned, so I. You know, just going where people wanted to hear me talk. My chief of staff then called me into the office to say, Terry, people are complaining about you, and I hear you.

You're a band speaker. You know what's going on. So I had to, you know, sort of explain what, what I was doing, and he said well. I'm gonna send you off to the Ary Alternative Medicine Clinic 'cause you need to learn how to talk about this in the public space, in your medical records. You're not upsetting your colleagues because if you get an anonymous complaint you're gonna get your practice reviewed by the Clinical Advisory Committee if the Board of Medicine and they could pull your license.

So I I went to the Ary Alternative Medicine Clinic and I did learn how to be, be much more explicit that I'm supporting physiology, I'm improving the health of your microenvironment and your cells would, will do whatever they're going to do. And we'll just, and this is a non FDA approved treatment.

So as, as I. I'm not treating your chronic disease. I'm trying to create a better environment for yourselves. That that message was better received by my colleagues. And as I started publishing, we're doing our clinical trials and my chief of staff, by the way, was very supportive of giving me protected time to do my clinical trials.

And every year there is the Internal Medicine Research Day, the College of Medicine Research Day, and we present our research.

It was, you know, remarkably positive, that first single arm safety and feasibility study. And then larger randomized controlled trials or parallel randomized trials. And you know what? Consistently we show that our interventions people can do them that we don't have serious adverse events.

Blood pressure's improved. Blood sugar's improved. Fatigue goes down, quality of life goes up. And then there's this wonderful composite measure that combines walking function, hand function, and working memory. We're able to show that that improves. And so now we've got a, a big study, a, a two year study that's underway comparing a ketogenic diet, a paralympic diet, an usual diet with information about the dietary guidelines diet.

It is a two year intervention. We'll, we'll have we anticipate having our last study visit in July of 2026. We have 162 people in. It is super, super exciting. It'll be one of the largest, longest studies and certainly the largest that has MRIs as part of the study. Yeah. And it's the longest that has a dietary intervention as part of the study.

So what, whatever we find will be super interesting just to show that, you know, people can do this that. In what, what happens to things like their blood pressure, their blood sugar, their, their lipids, their patient reported outcomes, and then the clinical outcomes, walking hand function, vision function in working memory.

I. 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yes. And that's exactly what you have to do. You know, you're, you're doing a phenomenal job gathering that objective data because you can't argue with that. And I'm definitely learning this. We're, we're navigating the same situation where we've, you know, created our own methodology and, and now I've actually created regenerative medicine procedures as well.

But it's met with this open air of skepticism and how dare you and why would you, you know what I mean? Well, 

Dr. Terry Wahls: but, but I wanna point out we are all like that. Yes. All of us understand the world based on our previous experiences. We recognize patterns quickly and if there's new information that doesn't fit with my understanding of the world.

I ignore it. Yes. And you ignore it. Did all the listeners, we ignore that as well until there's a overwhelming amount of evidence. I'm like, Hmm, maybe I have to adjust my understanding of the world in, because there is so much information that we have to take in our bo our, our nervous system has been constricting the amount of information that we have to respond to ever since we were infants.

And so I, I think we have to be forgiving of our conventional colleagues for yes, they're, they're operating with their understanding of the world. What we have to do is keep building the evidence, you know, serve the people who are curious and ready for this new paradigm. You know, and, and I, I'm, I'm mindful that I'm not treating chronic disease.

I'm creating healthy environments for the cells. And then often people are surprised at how, how effectively their cells rebuild a new, healthier cell and body, you know, correctly made molecule by correctly made molecule. 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Very beautifully said. Absolutely 100%. So for those listening that are not familiar with what the Walls protocol actually is.

Can you walk us through Yeah. A better understanding of that? 

Dr. Terry Wahls: So it, it's, it's an integrative way of thinking about how to create that better environment for my cells. So it starts with nutrition and I sort of a level 1, 2, 3, if you include the elimination diet for variations of a diet at the first level.

We're adding more non-starchy vegetables, green leafy vegetables, cabbage, onion mushroom vegetables in deeply colored vegetables and berries. And I ask people to give up gluten, dairy, and eggs, at least eggs temporarily. 'cause gluten and dairy are the common on ized inflammation driving foods.

And I want them to reduce the added sugar in the flour based foods. You can do level one as a vegetarian. Or you can do it as a meatier. Level two is more paleolithic. So, I encourage meat, fish reduce the gluten, the non-gluten containing grains to two servings a week. I, and. We add fermented vegetables and we add organ meats in seaweed, and if you're using nuts and seeds to soak or sprout them so that they are less inflammatory.

Then level three is a ketogenic diet. So, fewer carbs and more healthy fats. Level four would be the elimination diet, which takes out all grains, all legumes and nightshades. If you're a vegetarian, you're gonna have to continue with gluten-free grains in legumes. But then we'd want you to use a pressure cooker, that's the nutrition side that we talk about the, the ways you can reduce and monitor stress, uh uh, and how to increase physical activity, how to improve sleep, how to reduce social isolation the benefits of hormesis, so mild to moderate stress. From which you can fully recover and you can do that through nutrition, through spices, through fasting, through exercise, through sauna or cold plunges.

But you wanna be sure there's enough stress relief from stress so you can fully recover if there's no stress. There's no hormetic and, and that can be very debilitating as well. You can think of our astronauts and people at bedrest, they don't have any stress from gravity. They decondition, they demineralize their bones lose muscle mass very rapidly.

So, stress, the correct amount is very important. And recovery, the correct amount is very important. And I, and while my preference is that people fix their nutrition first, my veterans taught me that I have to listen. Sometimes people have to fix their exercise first. Sometimes they have to fix their stress first so that they're in a better place to begin to deal with the withdrawal they'll experience from fixing their nutrition.

So it, that's helpful to talk with my patients. Here are the domains, you know, nutrition, stress, sleep, exercise I so social isolation. Which domain do you wanna start in first? I, I prefer nutrition, but if that's not where you wanna start, let us know where you want to start. But we want you to start somewhere.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah, that's, that's awesome. I mean, I, I personally have had autoimmune challenges. I've got Hashimoto's and. When I did a sabbatical, I did a three month long sabbatical in Costa Rica. I was off all medication. I wasn't even doing supplementation, I was just eating whole foods. I was in the sun all the time.

I was on the beach and my stress was completely changed and I went into full remission. It was very interesting. So the stress story has always been very integral. You know, to, to my research and to things that I'm talking through with patients, it's so important and so many people just don't really understand that or even talk about it, especially from a physician side.

Your story really navigated multiple sclerosis, but can this be applied to other autoimmune conditions or other disease processors? 

Dr. Terry Wahls: So it's been very helpful for many rheumatologic autoimmune problems. Lupus, rheumatoid arthritis Sjogren's, psoriatic arthritis, spon all the spondylopathy inflammatory bowel disease.

It has been helpful for fibromyalgia. We're now for long covid as well. And if you follow me on Instagram, people can see. And actually, you know, this happens every week, every month we get emails from followers who tell us that they, their family member has a genetic disorder. The fa, the medical team said there's nothing more that they could do.

They discovered my work, implemented the concepts and the quality of life dramatically improves for that child or that young adult or that, you know, older adult. It's not that they don't. Still have cystic fibrosis or Duchenne's muscular dystrophy. Or in, in this case, this one child had Mitchell Syndrome, a severe demyelinating disease.

Mm-hmm. What they discover is that by, you know, addressing the nutrition, addressing all these environmental factors, modifiable lifestyle factors, they get the best functioning possible for them. And if of. Bruce Ames, a brilliant nutritional biochemist who, who made the observation that depending on the genetic disorder, you could use targeted high dose supplementation to bypass the the genetic inadequacies of their biochemistry.

So people have been able to greatly diminish the negative impact of of Down Syndrome, for example, and the negative impact of Mitchell Syndrome which is a severe emity disease affecting children. They, you know, somewhere around six months to a year they begin regressing, going back on their milestones and need feeding tubes and, you know, have a very, very short lifespan.

This family was sent my book and they said, no, read it. Implement what you can. And they began implementing through the feeding tube, the tardive nutrition that I talked about. And the little boy started hitting his milestones and they got a new MRI and his brain had started repairing the myelin and he started sitting up and crawling and walking and climbing and doing really very well.

Now is, is he. Cured. No. But he has an amazing quality of life and his family is so grateful. So their message is, you know, check out the protocol. Implement as much as you can. And be very hopeful that you can markedly improve the quality of the life for your child and for your family members. 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Right.

Which is so important. And it changes the shift of, you know, what we're really focusing on, right? We're, we're not trying to cure a disease disease per se. We're trying to improve the quality of life. Of our patients, which is, is huge. What about those really just trying to optimize their health? Like is this something, is this a protocol to follow for that?

Dr. Terry Wahls: Yeah. If, if you, you know, I'm, I'm now 69, soon to be 70, I have a grandson. And I like to see him grow up. I wanna see him become the young man, see who he falls in love with someday and hopefully wants to start a family of his own. So I'm now visualizing I want to thrive to 120. 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah. 

Dr. Terry Wahls: So I want to have a strong mind, strong body.

I, so I'm gonna have great nutrition, great self care. I I'm doing much more on lifting weights now 'cause I'm thinking about chasing my grandson and carrying him around. So, if you, if you're healthy and you simply want to thrive to your eighties, nineties, a hundred and beyond, this is a great program.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yes. And I, I guess that kinda shifts into the, the mindset that, like what you're really starting to talk about now, or what I'm hearing, right? You, you want to build an epidemic of health. That is my 

Dr. Terry Wahls: mission. 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yes. And do you think that this is really where the future of medicine should be shifting towards?

Like what, what's your, what's your concept here? I. 

Dr. Terry Wahls: You know, I, I think yes, we still need to have our, our great tools to treat disease, absolutely. But at, at, we also want to be creating an epidemic of great cellular microenvironments. So great nutrition, great exercise the correct amount of stress from which you can fully recover.

Great connections, meaning, and purpose, which means. If you don't have enough time in your clinical practice to do that, and, and most of my conventional physicians don't that ideally they're referring their patients now to health coaches, to nutrition professionals, to folks in the integrative and medicine space who can help support patients who are ready to explore and deepen their skillset in these areas.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Right. So I know that people are going to want to be researching, learning more, reading your books, et cetera. Can you give my listeners the resources? Where can they go to find more information? 

Dr. Terry Wahls: Yeah, so, I wanna give you a bunch of suggestions. First, follow me on Instagram Dr. Terry Walls, DR Terry, TERY, walls, W-A-H-L-S.

There you get to see what I'm eating doing. Great insights into my daily life. Then go to my website, terry walls.com. In there you can look at my blog, sign up. If you go to scroll all the way to the bottom, be sure and sign up for my emails. 'cause then you'll see my emails, my messages, my review of the latest research updates.

And I think that's super helpful. And those are the two, the two things I really want people to do. And I think it's important that people have hope. You know, if I can come back from such profound disability, you know, really, disability, unable to sit up. Severe pain due to trigeminal neuralgia has you have brain fog.

And now, you know, I'm biking. I'm hiking. I'm jogging I'm lifting weights getting ready to run and chase my grandson who's a year. And that's super exciting to me. And, you know, people sometimes say, well. But no one else has recovered. Well, that's not true. We've had other people with wheelchair dependents who have, and yes, it does take work.

This doesn't happen overnight. It does take work. Yes. But in three years time, they go from being unable to sit up. Wheelchair dependent to walking, hiking and having a rich and full life. Now it's going out dancing with their spouse. So, yes it is possible. And, and part of the reason I was able to recover so quickly is I'm a former athlete.

And so I. Really took my rehab to athletic levels of efforts and commitment. And if your listeners, if you'll take your efforts to training good nutrition, physical training, thinking of that as an athletic endeavor, however small you have to start, you'll have, you'll greatly reap the benefits.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Absolutely. Well, you are such a wealth of knowledge. Your pioneering work is helping so many people. I mean, we could go on, we could go on so many different tangents, but I think what I'd like for the listeners to do is to dive into those resources, start really defining what this journey looks like for them.

Use your information to really start to transform their life, because what you've developed is so transformative. I mean, that's the word that keeps coming to mind here. I mean, through your life, it's transformative. But then all the different patients, all the different people that this has applied to, it's just so amazing.

I'm so thankful for your work. Like I said, I've been looking at your work ever since. My early days since learning functional neurology and back then. You know, there was not a huge discussion around nutrition and how that is incorporated into neuroplasticity and whatnot. It, it's a conversation now, but back then, you know, it was really your work and really just a few other things that I was looking at.

So I'm very thankful. My patients are thankful and, you know, again, thank you for sharing with us today and, you know, we're just also grateful for you. 

Dr. Terry Wahls: Well keep up the good work. I, I love what I do. It gives me great joy to know that we are creating this epidemic. There are more and more people interested in diet, in nutrition and that includes my neurology colleagues, my go to the consortium of MS centers.

There are more neurologists agreeing that, well, yes, nutrition does make a big difference. 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Absolutely. Absolutely. Awesome. Thank you so much. Dr. Wall's story is one of resilience, innovation, and a deep commitment to shifting the way we think about health and healing from facing a life in a wheelchair to biking around the block, her journey is nothing short of inspiring.

If today's episode sparked something in you, whether you're navigating your own health challenges or just looking to optimize how you show up in life, I really encourage you to dive deeper into her work. Follow her on Instagram at Dr. Terry Walls, so that's at Dr. T-E-R-R-Y-W-A-H-L-S. Check out her website@terrywalls.com and explore the walls protocol.

There's so much wisdom there, and as always, thank you for listening, for being curious, and for showing up to these important conversations. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who needs to hear it and don't forget to subscribe. So you never miss what's next. Until next time, stay curious, stay well, and never accept.

Never.

Voice Over: We hope today's episode has inspired you to take that next step towards your best self. Remember, the path to longevity is paved with small daily decisions. Your journey is unique and every step, every choice brings you closer to your ultimate vision of a healthier, happier life. For more insights, tips, and resources, visit drbrandoncrawford.com

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Dr. Brandon Crawford

Host
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Dr. Terry Wahls

Guest