KC Meat Up

Multiple Sclerosis and the Carnivore Diet

By Jeffrey M. Barber

Personal stories, not medical advice. If you take medication (especially for blood sugar, blood pressure or mood), change your diet with your doctor in the loop.

What it feels like

Fatigue that sleep doesn't touch. Brain fog. Numbness, double vision, legs that won't do what you ask. The calendar fills with injections, infusions and MRIs, and you live with the fear of the next attack. Several people below went from a cane, a walker or a wheelchair to telling a different story.

Real people, real stories (N=1)

🔴 Multiple Sclerosis: There IS Something You Can Do! · Dr. Anthony Chaffee · Watch on YouTube

  • Dr. Anthony Chaffee answers a viewer whose friend with MS is told meat is bad, and says every autoimmune disease he has seen has improved on a carnivore diet. YouTube
  • Dr. Anthony Chaffee introduces the story of a PhD biostatistician with MS who changed her diet. YouTube

10 AUTOIMMUNE Conditions Benefit from CARNIVORE Diet (Research) 2026 · Dr. Ken Berry · Watch on YouTube

  • Dr. Ken Berry names multiple sclerosis among the autoimmune conditions he says benefit from a carnivore diet, citing scores if not hundreds of reports. YouTube

Carnivore Gave Her A Radical Upturn | Dr. Shawn Baker & Rebecca · Rebecca (with Dr. Shawn Baker) · Watch on YouTube

  • Rebecca's chapter on painful daily injections for multiple sclerosis treatment. YouTube
  • Rebecca's chapter on her eye nerve being corrected and her double vision improving. YouTube
  • Rebecca and Dr. Shawn Baker's chapter on diet possibly helping multiple sclerosis, with scientific support still pending. YouTube

Minding your mitochondria | Dr. Terry Wahls | TEDxIowaCity · Dr. Terry Wahls · Watch on YouTube

  • Dr. Terry Wahls describes progressing to secondary progressive MS and using a tilt-recline wheelchair despite standard treatment. YouTube
  • Dr. Terry Wahls presents her Wahls diet plan: a paleo-style diet with large amounts of vegetables plus grass-fed meat, organ meats and seaweed. YouTube

🔴My Multiple Sclerosis IMPROVED With A Carnivore Diet! | Pennie Roehr Part 1 · Pennie Roehr · Watch on YouTube

  • Pennie Roehr's chapter on starting the carnivore diet after years of MS treatment. YouTube
  • Pennie Roehr says she went from having MS attacks to having zero, with no attacks through 2022. YouTube
  • Pennie Roehr says she hasn't had an attack since and describes a visit with her neurologist. YouTube

🔴From Wheelchair to Walking: How Dr. Sarah Conquered Multiple Sclerosis (MS) With Her Diet! · Dr. Sarah · Watch on YouTube

  • Dr. Sarah describes needing a walker because of MS. YouTube
  • Dr. Anthony Chaffee notes that Dr. Sarah's MRI shows clear objective improvement, with her lesions fading. YouTube
  • Dr. Sarah says she is getting back to ballet, which she stopped in college. YouTube

CARNIVORE DIET FIXED DEPRESSION, BIPOLAR, HOMELESS, MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS, EMILY PENTON · Emily Penton · Watch on YouTube

  • Emily Penton's chapter on the resolution of her MS. She recalls having used a cane and having delayed, slurred speech. YouTube

Ten Months Later… · Diane (No Carb Life / David Mac) · Watch on YouTube

On David Mac's No Carb Life channel, Diane says she was diagnosed with MS in 2016 and that after three weeks of carnivore her brain fog lifted and her fatigue was gone (from a transcript excerpt).

Read the full notes

Pennie Roehr, on Dr. Anthony Chaffee's channel. Starting carnivore at 17:06 After years of two to five attacks a year, at 24:16 she says she went to "having zero… I had no attacks through 2022." At 26:20 she adds: "I haven't had any since," and talks about seeing her neurologist.

Dr. Sarah, a PhD biostatistician, on Dr. Anthony Chaffee's channel. Watch at 7:01 She describes needing a walker. At 14:40 Dr. Chaffee notes her MRI is "showing clear objective improvement" with lesions fading. At 28:38 she says she's getting back to ballet.

Rebecca, on Dr. Shawn Baker's channel. Chapter at 5:56: "Painful daily injections for multiple sclerosis treatment" The next chapter, at 8:02, is "Eye nerve corrected, double vision improved, relief."

Emily Penton, on Growth Factor. Chapter "Resolution of MS and other physical issues" at 30:19 At 30:28 she recalls using "a cane" and having "delayed and slurred speech."

Diane, interviewed on David Mac's channel, No Carb Life. Ten Months Later… She was diagnosed with MS in 2016 and says that after three weeks of carnivore "the brain fog lifted, the uh fatigue was gone, and I was a new person." (The quote comes from a transcript excerpt in search results. No timestamp: we couldn't download this video's captions.)

If MS has been shrinking your life, these stories are worth bringing to your neurologist as a monitored diet trial alongside your treatment plan.

Our thesis

Our thesis: MS is an immune disease, and what we eat shapes the immune system. Removing modern and plant-derived triggers while feeding the nervous system nutrient-dense animal foods may change its course for some people. This is understudied: the trials cited here tested ketogenic and Wahls/Swank diets, not carnivore, and no carnivore trial for MS exists that we know of. The stories above are the main reason we think it deserves a bet.

The bet

  • A directional shift. The stories above come from real people, on camera and in their own words. They are anecdotes, but they point the same way, and we think that's worth taking seriously.
  • Lower risk with your doctor in the loop. Eating meat, eggs, salt and water for a set trial period is a reversible experiment. Stopping some MS disease-modifying therapies can trigger severe rebound relapses, so any change goes through your neurologist. The trial happens with your doctor in the loop, not around them; see the Safety check above for the details.
  • Why the research is thin. Randomized trials are built for drugs and are expensive. No one can patent a steak, so the industry has little incentive to fund primal-diet research. A missing trial isn't proof that it works, and it isn't proof that it doesn't.
  • The primal lens. The human body was shaped long before refined sugar, seed oils and ultra-processed food existed. We see the modern diet as the uncontrolled experiment, and a meat-based trial as a step back toward the conditions our biology evolved in.

Overview: the condition, holistically

Multiple sclerosis is an immune-mediated disease in which the immune system damages myelin, the insulation around nerves in the brain and spinal cord. Risk factors include genetics, low vitamin D and little sun, Epstein–Barr virus infection, smoking and obesity. Standard care centers on disease-modifying therapies that reduce relapses and new lesions, plus symptom management and rehabilitation. Diet is an active research area: ketogenic, Swank and Wahls diets have each been studied in small trials.

How carnivore is claimed to help

What advocates say, attributed to them:

  • Remove the triggers. Dr. Anthony Chaffee says plant foods and their toxins can drive autoimmunity. At 0:21 he says that "every autoimmune disease … that I've ever seen … has improved on" a carnivore diet.
  • Feed the myelin. Dr. Terry Wahls says the brain needs B vitamins (B1, B9, B12), omega-3 fats and other nutrients to build myelin. Her approach is nutrient-dense paleo with large amounts of vegetables plus meat and organ meats, not carnivore (8:46).
  • Ketosis and stable energy. Advocates cite small ketogenic diet studies (see Sources).

Doctors and advocates

Read the full notes

Dr. Anthony Chaffee, physician. Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@anthonychaffeemd

Dr. Ken Berry, family physician. Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@KenDBerryMD

Dr. Shawn Baker, orthopedic surgeon. Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DrShawnBakerPodcast

Dr. Terry Wahls, physician and clinical professor. Website: https://terrywahls.com. Note: she promotes the paleo-based Wahls Protocol, not a carnivore diet.

  • Minding your mitochondria | TEDxIowaCity. At 0:50 she describes secondary progressive MS and her "tilt recline wheelchair." Her diet plan starts at 8:46. We include her because her story inspires many people with MS and overlaps with carnivore on meat, organ meats and cutting processed food. Her plan is vegetable-heavy.

Questions to ask your doctor

Ask: "Can I try a dietary change alongside my DMT?" "Can we check my vitamin D and B12, and use my next MRI to compare?" Not sure your concerns are being heard? See when to question the advice.

Try it

  • Go through the Safety check above with your doctor before you start.
  • Plan meals (ruminant meat, eggs, liver) with the KC Meatup calculator.
  • Find KC butchers and clinicians in the directory.
Plan your meat with the calculator

Not medical advice

Personal stories, not medical advice. If you take medication (especially for blood sugar, blood pressure or mood), change your diet with your doctor in the loop.

Sources

Research

  • Brenton JN et al. (2022). Phase II study of ketogenic diets in relapsing multiple sclerosis: safety, tolerability and potential clinical benefits. JNNP. https://doi.org/10.1136/jnnp-2022-329074. This tested a ketogenic diet, not a carnivore one, and was a single-arm study.
  • Wahls TL et al. (2021). Impact of the Swank and Wahls elimination dietary interventions on fatigue and quality of life in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis: the WAVES randomized parallel-arm clinical trial. https://doi.org/10.1177/20552173211035399. This tested the Swank and Wahls (paleo-type) diets, not a carnivore one.

Videos (all verified by oEmbed. Timestamps are confirmed against YouTube auto-captions or chapters. Quotes are from the auto-captions unless noted.)