"an apple a day, keeps the (MS) doctor away"?

The kick-off 2.0: a big success!

There is no cancellation within the UMSC! After 2 long corona years, we were finally able to introduce the UMSC to the general public on March 26th, 2022. More than 130 people with MS, researchers, care providers, but also people from the business community came to Hasselt University to learn more about the effects of a healthy lifestyle in general, but also especially for people with MS. Keynote Servaas Bingé started the session and taught the audience a lot about how we can keep our immune system healthy by eating healthy and keep on moving every day. Subsequently, Annick Bogaerts (active within the patient platform of the UMSC) and Aislin D'Hooghe (keeper of the Belgian hockey team) testified how exercise and a healthy diet positively influence their lives with MS.


During an interactive lunch, again several people with MS testified about the positive effects of a healthy diet and regular exercise, even if you are bound to a wheelchair, small movements can help you on a daily basis. Our own researchers presented their work as well and a short meditation session was provided by well-known neurologist Prof.dr. Steven Laureys. Finally, we put our loyal sponsor VZW Boomerang in the spotlights. They supported the UMSC last year by donating 15,000 euros for MS research.


The press was also interested in the activities of the UMSC. The research of prof.dr. Jerome Hendriks was nicely highlighted. We would like to emphasize though that these are indeed important findings, but that they need to be further investigated in humans. You can read or review the articles once more: article in Het belang van Limburg (pdf, 350 KB), De Standaard (pdf, 1.1 MB), Het Nieuwsblad (pdf, 308 KB), het nieuws op TVL.


Finally, some nice images of the day: