How He Reversed MS & Beat a Stroke | Montel Williams

Montel had tried CoQ10 and other supplements previously with zero noticeable effect. MitoQ was different: week 1-2 he questioned if it was placebo; by week 4, after missing a couple of doses on a trip and then restarting, he unmistakably felt the return of benefit—more energy and faster recovery. He now takes it as religiously as his prescription MS medication, having only missed a dose once or twice in the past few weeks. He takes it before his morning tea and waits 3-4 hours before his first meal (part of his intermittent fasting). He pairs it with other supplements but separates doses. Dr. Fitzgerald confirms this is the correct way to take it. The protocol is simple but demanding: daily, empty stomach, no skipping. He believes this disciplined approach is key to sustaining the benefits he's seeing in the gym and in emotional regulation.

After his 1999 diagnosis, a nurse advised him that inflammation was his nemesis and to research MS aggressively. He went to libraries, educated himself, and concluded that diet was a primary lever. He jumped to near 100% vegan, then liquefied everything to make consumption easier and absorption faster. He credits this extreme dietary shift—along with dropping 20 pounds and altering exercise—with 'putting a punch right in MS's face'. He became a public figure for high-speed blenders, selling them on QVC to teach others how to make green smoothies. After about five months, he reintroduced fish and became pescatarian. He emphasizes that what worked for him was identifying his personal inflammatory triggers, not a generic vegan prescription. The underlying principle is rigorous self-experimentation to find an anti-inflammatory eating pattern that is sustainable and effective.

Montel has been an extreme athlete since his Naval Academy days (powerlifting 650 lb squats). After MS diagnosis, he scaled back the heaviest lifts but maintained a rigorous schedule. Recently, he shifted his routine to do aerobic work at the end, which dramatically improved his weight performance and recovery speed. He shocked himself by how quickly he recovered after heavy sets. His gym anecdote about a fellow member guessing he was 39 highlights his physical condition. He works out 6-7 days a week, only resting when his body absolutely demands it. This relentless consistency, combined with paying attention to his body's signals and adjusting intensity, has been a cornerstone of his MS management. It also serves as a barometer for his overall health—when supplements like MitoQ improve recovery, he can directly measure it in his workout capacity. He is outperforming his 50-year-old self.

Montel mentions intermittent fasting almost as an aside, noting he has a 14–15 hour gap between dinner and his next meal. The key point is that his MitoQ dose falls within this fast, 3–4 hours before food, ensuring it's taken on a completely empty stomach. This may enhance bioavailability. While he didn't elaborate on fasting benefits, the practice is consistent with the functional medicine approach of reducing metabolic inflammation.

Montel describes a 47-year journey of seeking anything that could reduce MS symptoms. He has been an aggressive self-experimenter: vegan diets, green smoothies, neuromodulation, Western and Eastern medicine. Yet he says almost no supplement ever produced a perceptible change. With MitoQ, he began feeling something different in week two—so subtle he questioned if it was a placebo. By week four, after missing a few days while traveling, he noticed a pronounced drop in energy that confirmed the effect. Now, at eight weeks, his gym performance has skyrocketed: he does multiple 90-rep kettlebell sets with short rest, a routine he hasn't matched in a decade. His recovery between sets is shockingly fast. Moreover, he reports the most emotionally consistent 7-week period in 20 years—he no longer tears up at TV commercials or experiences uncontrollable anger, which he attributes to reduced neuroinflammation. This is not just a subjective feeling; he emphasizes he knows his baseline exquisitely well after years of meticulous tracking (water intake, sleep, symptoms). The change with MitoQ is quantifiable in his workout logs and daily mood. He also mentions that his cognition feels sharper, with information retrieval happening in ‘a hundredth of a second’ instead of a second. He is now so convinced that he has recommended it to fellow celebrities with MS (Christina Applegate, Selma Blair) and his own physicians, calling it a 'weird ass supplement' that you need to figure out how to get. He plans to continue indefinitely, predicting he'll be on it at age 80.

Montel explains that doctors for years told him he was suffering from depression because he would cry easily or become explosively angry. But he never had the classic thought patterns of depression—no suicidal ideation, no self-loathing. Instead, he would suddenly tear up at a dog commercial or fly into a rage if someone crossed his path quickly. His MRIs show a large number of lesions in the pons region. He learned that this area governs emotional lability, or pseudobulbar affect. Realizing this allowed him to see these outbursts as a direct symptom of his MS inflammation, not a separate mood disorder. Consequently, instead of relying solely on psychiatric medications, he doubled down on reducing systemic inflammation through diet, exercise, and supplements. He reports that as inflammation drops, the outbursts become far less frequent. The recent addition of MitoQ seems to have given him the longest stretch of emotional stability in decades. This insight has profound implications for MS care: when a patient presents with mood swings, clinicians should consider lesion location and prioritize anti-inflammatory interventions rather than automatically defaulting to antidepressants.

Before graduation in 1980, Midshipman Williams went through a pre-commissioning immunization line where vaccines were administered via jet injector ('the gun'). He later learned the first 100 people in line received an overdose, roughly 10 times the intended dose. The concoction included rubella and three other immunizations combined. Within an hour he was incapacitated, lost vision in his left eye to 20/2600 with a large scotoma, and developed patchy neuropathic pain across his face, trunk, and limbs. He spent months being shuffled between top medical institutions with no diagnosis. He clarifies he is not saying the vaccine caused MS, but the massive inflammatory storm it provoked likely triggered the first demyelinating event in a genetically predisposed nervous system. This narrative underscores the critical role of inflammation as the 'nemesis' in MS. It also highlights a diagnostic odyssey delayed by racial bias—doctors dismissed MS because of his skin color despite his mixed heritage. He was ultimately not commissioned initially due to his uncorrectable vision, only receiving his commission later after partial recovery.

While discussing potential synergies with MitoQ, Montel casually mentions his work with veterans and a PTSD therapy called RTM. He describes it as one of the only 'cures' for PTSD that doesn't rely on medication. The protocol involves a specific psychological process that, over a few sessions, completely resolves intrusive symptoms. He emphasizes that for the first time, outcomes are quantifiably changed. He speculates that if you added MitoQ to the mix (given the inflammatory and mitochondrial components of PTSD), the already remarkable success rate might improve from 90% to 100%. This recommendation is aimed at the physician audience, urging them to look up the protocol.