NiceCupOfTea said...
kazbern said...
There are many approaches to managing Crohn's disease but there is no cure.
That in a nutshell sums it up.
If you're not adverse to strict diets, then my recommendation for a lifestyle approach to Crohn's disease would be a low-carb/sugar diet, such as SCD, FODMAP, Paleo, GAPS, or Lutz's low-carb diet. These diets contradict one another in a few respects, so my suggestion would be to research them all. SCD is the most common diet for Crohn's, but some folks have problems with the home-made yoghurt. (You should eat that if you can, in my opinion: otherwise the beneficial bacteria are not going to be replaced.)
Note that diet is not
guaranteed to work, and it is a treatment rather than cure. Ditto supplements, probiotics, etc. One day a cure might be found for Crohn's, but it hasn't yet.
Finally, the only medical diets for Crohn's are low-residue (almost the diametric opposite to the above diets, ironically enough) and enteral nutrition (liquid diet); FODMAP is sorta in there, too, but I wouldn't place a large bet on the average GI having heard of it. A low-residue diet sometimes
has to be adopted if you develop a stricture.
As for what causes Crohn's disease, nobody has the foggiest. I'm not sure if having a genetic predisposition is an absolute perequisite, but that is indisputably where it begins for the majority. The genetic predisposition is then set off by environmental triggers, currently unknown although hotly disputed. Crohn's used to be considered an autoimmune disease, but the thinking has changed on that in recent years; ever since research has shown Crohn's sufferers to have an innate immune deficiency, rather than the overactive immune system they've been told they had for so long.
The Crohn's wiki is not a bad place to start:
I do agree with you with diet only some effects can be controlled but not cured. Nutrition for the body is very much necessary or else the immune system becomes weak there by landing us to a numerous problems.