Hi, my name is Ivy Larson and I’m responding to your post about the Woman’s World article and me “curing” myself of MS with food---I totally agree, the editor should never have implied I cured anything with food because that’s not at all the case. I still have MS, I just don’t have symptoms---and I’ve been in remission for over 10 years. As always, I was very clear in my interview that I did not cure my MS. But, having said that, I am 100% convinced that my switch to an all-natural “whole foods” anti-inflammatory diet has made a huge impact on my health and quality of life. I’m not a doctor, but my husband is a surgeon and a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (one of the top 3 medical schools in the country) and he helped me create the diet I follow. And by the way, my husband follows the diet too and so does our 7-year old son, who’s unusually healthy and has only been on antibiotics just once in his life. And yes, I do still eat meat (I eat lean grass-fed meat, which, by the way is not only healthier for you but also considerably healthier and more humane to the animals too—btw, Oprah just did a big story on her show on this issue yesterday!)

Anyway, I totally understand your frustration and I too get frustrated when the media spins my story for sensational purposes. Please do know though, I did write the book to help people. I lost one of my best friends, who was my boyfriend in high school and who also had MS to a suicide shortly after his 30th birthday. He took one of the disease-modifying MS medications which exacerbated his underlying depression. I started writing the book when my son was 6 months old after my friend said he would follow my diet if I ever managed to get it published. My husband was a surgical resident at the time and worked over 100 hours a week (he spent every other night in the hospital) and we shared a car with no family to help. After considerable effort and after acquiring multiple testimonials I finally did get the book published but it was too late to help my friend. We donated the proceeds of our first 10,000 books sold ($15,000) to the Montel Williams MS Foundation in my friends name (by the way, we were on The Montel Show and Montel too strongly believes in diet, exercise and nutritional supplementation.).

Again, I understand your frustration, but I’m frustrated too. My husband and I have run multiple “Lifestyle Makeover Programs” in both south Florida and New Jersey and I have hundreds of testimonials from my programs and from the over 55,000 people who have bought our Gold Coast Cure book---diet and lifestyle make a HUGE difference in many inflammatory conditions. No, diet doesn’t “cure” the diseases, but the current medications don’t cure them either---and many of the medications have side effects that are worse than the actual disease itself! Trust me, there’s no downside to eating healthy “whole foods”. Any doctor who doesn’t advocate a healthy diet is doing his patients a huge disservice. In my opinion, the neurologist that told my friend adopting a healthy diet was “a waste of his time” caused my friend to lose hope and when the medications and medical community failed him he took his own life. It’s a tragedy that I am certain could have been avoided.