Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy is one of the most severe forms of inherited muscular dystrophy. DMD is a disorder characterized by progressive muscle atrophy, degeneration, and weakness due to the alternations of dystrophin, a protein that keeps the muscle cells intact.
Indeed, it’s a muscle-wasting disorder. So, preserving the muscle mass and minimizing muscle wasting is a must. Patients can achieve this by implementing a healthy diet and adding at least 1 gram of protein per kilogram.
Continue reading to learn what lifestyle changes and eating habits to change! Living with DMD isn’t easy, but a healthy diet can help preserve your muscle mass.
Mealtime Strategies
Due to your Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Symptoms, eating and enjoying your meal times may be challenging. The following are strategies you can implement to make meal times productive and filling.
- Don’t rush any meal. Take your time to eat until you’re full. When you rush, you only increase your chances of choking. It may be hard to move around your muscles, but just take it slow and steady.
- It would be best to avoid dry foods with loose crumbs, e.g., chips, crackers, or day-old bread.
- Take small bites to make chewing and swallowing easier.
- To further reduce the risk of choking, minimize the distractions during mealtime. Avoid watching TV or listening to the radio. Just concentrate on your meal.
- Sit in an upright position to help with swallowing all the contents in your mouth. Avoid lying down when eating.
Choosing the Right Diet
Nutrition is a common challenge for individuals with muscular dystrophy. They have a hard time chewing and swallowing food and liquids. Some can even have a hard time with their saliva. They experience fatigue that reduces appetite and makes them feel like eating is a tiring chore. You can add other healthy snacks and foods to your plate to pair your protein with fresh vegetables or legumes.
When a patient has a limited caloric intake, this can break down their calories faster and experience a fast disease progression. To avoid this, we recommend choosing the proper diet by adding the following items to your meal plan!
Protein
Protein is an essential part of a person’s diet when they have muscular dystrophy. Adding more protein to your diet helps alleviate any muscle wasting caused by this condition, especially during periods of muscle atrophy and weakness.
Additionally, adding protein to your diet can help increase energy levels and maintain strength over time. So, when adding protein to your diet, ensure that you only add high-quality proteins you can get from fish and eggs (which will be discussed in the next section). You can add other healthy foods to your plate to pair your protein with fresh vegetables or legumes.
Eggs
Eggs are a necessary diet for DMD patients. It’s an inexpensive, cost-effective way to get protein, vitamins, and minerals needed in the body. It’s an excellent food to help you build muscle mass fast due to its high leucine content. For most people, 25-30g of protein found in 4-5 eggs is a good target. However, for DMD patients, you can determine how much protein they would need by dividing their weight in pounds in half.
Overall, eggs are great for optimal physical health. You can cook eggs by boiling them, making an omelet, adding them to protein shakes, or frying them in healthy oils (coconut or olive). After physical therapy, you can eat eggs as a snack or a meal since DMD patients need them with fats, energy, and cholesterol.
Tuna
Tuna is rich in omega-3 fatty acids. These acids are known for helping build and maintain a healthy body. It performs vital functions and improvements in the body, including the immune system, brain, cardiovascular, and neuromuscular functions.
Adding tuna to your diet helps reduce inflammation throughout the body and reduce the symptoms of DMD. Aside from omega 3, tuna is also a healthy source of protein, selenium, iron and other vitamins.
Pumpkin Seeds
Are you looking for something to snack on during the day? Consider adding pumpkin seeds to your diet since they contain numerous nutrients and high levels of minerals. Adding this to your diet can help soothe your tired muscles. Pumpkin seeds also contain healthy fats and proteins.
You’ll also be glad to know it’s low in sugar and carbohydrates. This fact makes pumpkin seeds a healthy snack that stimulates your muscle growth while limiting your calorie intake. This food can help patients with muscular dystrophy.
Chicken Breast
Do you prefer chicken as your protein? Then, you may enjoy adding chicken breast to your diet. It’s a lean source of protein, and it’s low in fat but full of essential nutrients. It’s a healthy and guilt-free way to get the protein needed for a day.
Cooking chicken is pretty versatile. The recipes range from boiling (a healthier way of eating chicken breast) to grilling, roasting, and even oven-baking the meat. It can fit into any dietary plan due to its low-calorie content.
Final Thoughts
A healthy diet can reduce the symptoms of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and make it easier on the patient. It may be hard to start creating a healthy diet, but the benefits are worth it. Take your time and slowly try to include as much protein as possible and the listed ingredients above.
