Find Empathy

I am a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist who began my nutrition career as an inpatient acute care dietitian working in an oncology setting. After leaving this job and starting my private practice Food Matters 365, LLC my work with the MS population began to grow rather organically. Quickly, I began to receive inquiries from other healthcare providers about the role of nutrition in multiple sclerosis. And this is when it became really clear to me that Dr. Google had taken huge advantage of the lack of credible information on this subject and has been filling the airwaves with… let’s just say, less than credible information. That is when it became my professional mission to share evidence-based nutrition information and put the role of nutrition into context for people impacted by MS. In 2019, I refocused my blogging efforts by renaming my website MSBites.

Dr. Mowry became interested in multiple sclerosis (MS) prior to beginning college and first performed MS research as an undergraduate biology major at Georgetown University. As a neurology resident at the University of Pennsylvania, she began her multiple sclerosis clinical research activities in conducting a study of visual dysfunction and quality of life in multiple sclerosis. During her fellowship at UCSF, Dr. Mowry evaluated prognostic factors in multiple sclerosis and examined health-related quality of life in multiple sclerosis, particularly as a marker of disease burden. She also earned a Master’s Degree in Clinical Research at UCSF. Dr. Mowry continued as a member of the faculty there before joining the Johns Hopkins Department of Neurology as an Assistant Professor in July, 2011; she received a joint appointment in Epidemiology in 2013. She was promoted to Associate Professor in 2015. Over the past several years, Dr. Mowry has worked primarily to perform epidemiologic investigations of multiple sclerosis (MS) risk and prognostic factors and has evaluated both genetic and environmental contributors. While she has had a major role in several such studies, her most significant work led to the identification of the association of vitamin D status with relapse and brain lesion risk in patients with MS (Annals of Neurology 2010, Annals of Neurology 2012, European Journal of Neurology 2015). She also conducted the first pilot study comparing gut bacterial populations in patients with MS and healthy individuals (Journal of Investigative Medicine 2014). She was recently funded to investigate the impact of vitamin D supplementation on the metabolomics profile in patients with MS compared to healthy controls. She enjoys designing and conducting clinical trials in MS and is the Principal Investigator of the Vitamin D to Ameliorate Multiple Sclerosis (VIDAMS) multicenter vitamin D trial (NCT01490502), which is sponsored by the National MS Society and a smaller multicenter pilot study investigating vitamin D pharmacokinetics in MS patients and healthy controls (NCT01667796). She is also the recipient of a Harry Weaver Award from the National MS Society, in which she is investigating the impact of intermittent calorie restriction in MS. Finally, as Director of the MS Experimental Therapeutics Program at Johns Hopkins, she assists colleagues with study design and helps oversee the conduct of MS clinical trials.

Emily Reilly has worked for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society as a Healthcare Provider Engagement Manager since 2019. She graduated with a degree in marketing but switched career paths after becoming a military wife in 2011. Emily is a certified group fitness instructor, personal trainer and chronic disease fitness specialist with over 7 years of experience creating and teaching adaptive fitness classes for those living with MS. The MS community is near and dear to Emily since she herself was diagnosed with MS at the age of 17. She refused to let this diagnosis stop her from pursuing after her goals and dreams and strives to help empower others living with MS to do the same! Her motto is “No matter what your limitation, you can keep moving”.