Episode 428: The Effects of Smoking, Consuming Alcohol, and Consuming Caffeine on Your MS with Dr. Barbara Giesser
Release Date: 11/10/2025
Episode 439: Preventing MS with Dr. Bruce Bebo
RealTalk MS
The first coordinated global research strategy to prevent MS has been announced. This week, Dr. Bruce Bebo, the National MS Society's Executive Vice President and Chief Research & Medical Affairs Officer, joins me to explain what MS prevention looks like and how experts plan to achieve this remarkable goal. We'll also tell you who won the 2025 Barancik Prize for Innovation in MS Research, and we'll explain how their groundbreaking research impacts MS care. We're sharing the details of a newly announced partnership designed to reduce delays in getting an MS diagnosis and expand...
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Episode 438: The Discovery of 2 MS Subtypes with Dr. Arman Eshaghi
RealTalk MS
One of the more confusing aspects of MS is that it can present differently from one person to the next. A research team at University College London may have uncovered a reason for that when they identified two new, and quite different, subtypes of MS. Joining me to walk us through this discovery and to explain how it may impact MS clinical care is the study's principal investigator, Dr. Arman Eshaghi. We're also sharing study results that may explain how the Epstein-Barr Virus triggers MS in some individuals. We'll tell you about the free online fitness and wellness...
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Episode 437: Remembering David Mitchell
RealTalk MS
I don't have to remind anyone who listens to this podcast that the cost of MS disease-modifying therapies is obscenely high. And we're not just talking about relatively new medications. Older medications -- some decades old -- continue to increase in price without any rational explanation for why or how. On January 2nd, we lost a true warrior in the ongoing battle to lower the price of prescription drugs when David Mitchell, the founder of Patients for Affordable Drugs, passed away. I met David in 2018 at a National MS Society Public Policy Conference, and he was a guest...
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Episode 436: 3 Questions Your Neurologist Should Be Asking Themselves with Dr. Leorah Freeman
RealTalk MS
Scientists are expanding our understanding of MS at an unprecedented pace. This week, Dr. Leorah Freeman discusses why, as new discoveries and medications enter clinical practice, neurologists and MS specialists should ask themselves 3 important questions when considering a patient's treatment plan. Dr. Freeman is the Director of the Multiple Sclerosis and Neuroimmunology Center at Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin, where she also leads the MS and Neuroimmunology fellowship program and the MS Imaging and Outcomes Research Laboratory. We'll also tell you about...
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Episode 435: Revisiting ECTRIMS 2025 with Dr. Bruce Bebo and Kristine Werner Ozug
RealTalk MS
We're closing out the year by revisiting the most listened-to episode of RealTalk MS in 2025. And it shouldn't come as a major surprise that this year's most listened-to episode was our review of the largest MS research conference in the world, ECTRIMS. This episode features the annual conversation that I have with Dr. Bruce Bebo, right outside of the conference center, just minutes after ECTRIMS adjourns. Dr. Bebo is the Executive Vice President of Research at the National MS Society, and each year, he very generously closes out 3 days of nonstop meetings,...
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Episode 434: Revisiting Managing Menopause While You're Managing MS with Dr. Riley Bove
RealTalk MS
The holiday season gives me the opportunity to indulge in what's become a RealTalk MS tradition. I reserve the last two episodes in December to revisit the most popular conversations that I've had over the past year. Women represent two-thirds of the MS population. Yet, surprisingly, there isn't nearly enough data related to women's health issues and MS. With an estimated 300,000 women living with MS in the United States who are currently in peri- or post-menopause, researchers have started to focus on how menopause and MS interact, and the best ways to treat symptoms...
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Episode 433: Our Most Important Conversations of 2025 with Dr. John Corboy, Dr. Mikael Simons, Dr. John DeLuca, and Dr. Stehen Krieger
RealTalk MS
As the year draws to a close, we wanted to share some of the most compelling conversations we've had over the past 12 months. And rather than make my own picks, we went through the hundreds of emails we've received over the past year from the RealTalk MS listener community to see which topics really connected with you. In this week's episode, you'll hear from four of the top MS experts in the world discussing the subjects you've told me are most important to you. First, we'll explore aging and MS with Dr. John Corboy, the principal investigator of the largest study designed to answer...
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Special Episode: Guiding the Future of MS Care: MS21 Consensus Recommendations for Improving MS Care to Relieve the Burden of Disease
RealTalk MS
This special episode of RealTalk MS is sponsored by EMD Serono and is only intended for a U.S. audience. EMD Serono is the healthcare business of Merck, KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, in the United States and Canada. Please note this episode is only intended for a U.S. audience. In this special episode of RealTalk MS, Professor Elisabeth Celius and Amanda Montague join me to explore new consensus recommendations for the future of MS care from MS in the 21st Century. We'll hear what experts and people in the MS community think are the priorities to focus on to improve care and help lessen the...
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Episode 432: Working With a Health & Wellness Coach with Amy Behimer
RealTalk MS
Michael Jordan never won an NBA championship until he was paired with the right coach. Then, he won six. Could working with a coach change your MS journey? In this week's episode, health & wellness coach Amy Behimer explains what health coaching is all about and how working with a coach might impact someone living with MS. We're also sharing study results that show DMTs fail to manage MS-related pain. Then, we'll explain how a common misconception can lead to the wrong outcome for someone with MS. And we'll share study results showing that adhering to the Mediterranean or MIND diet...
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Special Episode: I'm the First Participant in a CAR-T Cell Therapy Clinical Trial with Jan Janisch-Hanzlik
RealTalk MS
Welcome to a RealTalk MS special series on MS clinical trials. This special series is made possible through a generous grant from Sanofi. In this final episode of this series, you'll meet Jan Janisch-Hanzlik. Jan lives with MS and is a participant in one of the clinical trials evaluating the safety and efficacy of CAR-T cell therapy for MS. In CAR-T cell therapy, blood is taken from the patient or a healthy donor, much as you would donate blood. This blood is sent to a lab, where the white blood cells, or T-cells, are separated out and reprogrammed to carry a receptor designed to...
info_outlineAs researchers continue to learn about MS, it becomes clear that you can change the trajectory of your MS journey and improve your quality of life by making smart lifestyle choices. Quitting smoking and watching your alcohol and caffeine consumption are smart choices for everyone, and they can pay especially big dividends if you're living with MS.
This week, Dr. Barbara Giesser discusses how smoking, consuming alcohol, and consuming caffeine can impact your MS.
We're also sharing the details about the Black MS Experience Summit taking place on November 12th, and the Hispanic LatinX MS Experience Summit taking place on November 19th.
We'll tell you about a study that revealed what may be a novel way of stimulating remyelination.
You'll meet Dr. Arman Eshaghi and hear about how artificial intelligence may impact your future MRI exam.
We'll share study results that show that carbohydrate consumption may increase the risk of an individual developing MS.
And we'll tell you about a study that looked at the connection between starting a disease-modifying therapy early and quality of life related to cognitive function and fatigue.
We have a lot to talk about! Are you ready for RealTalk MS??!
This Week: What you need to know about how smoking, consuming alcohol, and consuming caffeine impact your MS :22
The Black MS Experience Summit is TOMORROW! 1:32
The National MS Society is hosting the Hispanic LatinX MS Experience Summit on Nov 19th 2:33
Study results indicate the path to myelin repair may require subtraction, not addition 3:04
Dr. Arman Eshaghi discusses how AI may change how MRI scans are interpreted 5:12
Study results show a connection between carbohydrate intake and MS risk 15:10
Study results show how starting a DMT early impacts quality of life related to cognitive function and fatigue among people with MS 17:55
Dr. Barbara Giesser discusses how smoking, consuming alcohol, and consuming caffeine impact people living with MS 21:38
Share this episode 31:07
Next week's episode 31:27
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LINKS
If your podcast app doesn't allow you to click on these links, you'll find them in the show notes in the RealTalk MS app or at www.RealTalkMS.com
PARTICIPATE: Take the Shaping Tomorrow Together Online Survey
https://s.alchemer.com/s3/Perspectives-on-MS
SIGN UP: Become an MS Activist
https://nationalmssociety.org/advocacy
WATCH: The RealTalk MS ECTRIMS Extra Conversations video playlist on YouTube
https://realtalkms.com/ectrims2025
STUDY: Gt2fi-Encoded Transcription Factor Tfii-i Regulates Myelin Via Sox10 and Mbp Regulatory Elements
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63500-4
STUDY: Association Between Dietary Carbohydrate Intake and Multiple Sclerosis Risk: A Large-Scale Cohort Study
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2025.1654538/full
STUDY: Self-Reported Quality of Life Related to Cognitive Function and Fatigue in Adults with Multiple Sclerosis
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2211034825005516
REGISTER: The Black MS Experience Summit
https://nationalmssociety.org/resources/get-support/education-programs-and-library/black-ms-experience
REGISTER: The Hispanic LatinX MS Experience Summit
https://nationalmssociety.org/resources/get-support/education-programs-and-library/hispanic-latinx-ms-experience
JOIN: The RealTalk MS Facebook Group
https://facebook.com/groups/realtalkms
REVIEW: Give RealTalk MS a rating and review
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RealTalk MS Episode 428
Guests: Dr. Arman Eshaghi, Dr. Barbara Giesser