Dr. Raquel Pinderhughes is Professor of Urban Studies and Planning at San Francisco State University, where she teaches courses and conducts research on urban planning, environmental planning, social justice, and health issues. She has been reviewing the literature on the relationship between diet and illness for more than two decades. At the time she developed the MS Diet, in 2004, there were very few scientific studies or articles focused on the relationship between diet and multiple sclerosis and the diet she created for her husband when he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis was trailblazing. Today, there is a growing body of research on the critical role that diet and vitamins play in the lives of people diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. A simple Internet search reveals hundreds of scientific studies and thousands of personal testimonies focused on how people with multiple sclerosis are benefiting from specific dietary changes that improve their physical and mental health. Although she is continually creating new recipes, the recipes included in this cookbook form the basis of the MS Diet that she developed to support her husband and others with multiple sclerosis.

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Dr. Pinderhughes began developing the recipes included in the MS Cookbook in 2004 when her husband first experienced symptoms of multiple sclerosis at age 47. Symptoms that transformed him from a strong, healthy, vibrant individual to a person who barely had enough energy to limp from one room to another dragging his left leg behind him; from a man who had no pain, to a man who lived in fear of what he came to describe as "electric shocks running up my legs"; from a man who biked to work every day, to a person who she thought she might have to be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Her husband's MS diagnosis prompted Dr. Pinderhughes to learn everything she could about multiple sclerosis and what she could do to help her husband deal with the illness and his symptoms. Within months of changing his diet her husband’s pain was reduced, his energy was restored, and he returned to work.  

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