Diet which really worked for me and gave me remission

Tuppence,

I read the medical article..I've read similar things about sulfites on the Chron's and Colitis website esp. regarding alcohol (eg, redwine) containing sulfites and UC'ers going back into flare-up when they consume items like these....

You have access to drugs in England that we won't see here for a couple to several years.

I'm glad the diet works for you...I wasn't aware of the caffeine affecting the thiamin (whether in the colon or the body i'm not sure from the reading) and that interaction with the sulfer (or making the sulfur).  I'm back on my diet of no caffeine and no carbonated beverages (the diet was put on me by my surgeon-to-be...)

Thanks for posting the link on the article.

 

ENIGMAWRAP,

Thank you for your interest in my post and the kind words.
It seems that thiamin is essential for maintaining a healthy colon. Thiamin deficiency has been linked by some studies to various colon diseases, including colon cancer. Reference 57 in the following wikipedia article is one such example:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiamine

What the article say is that sulfited foods make a thiamin deficient diet even worse, as sulfite ions chemically react with thiamin in the body and strips it off.

I think it is really interesting that the article makes a distinction between naturally occurring sulfites, like in beef for example, which appear to be actually beneficial, as opposed to sufilte-based preservatives, like metabisulfite, which are added to foods like fruit-squash drinks and sausages, and are harmful to UC. Until I'd read this article, I've never heard of this distinction being made.

Like you, I found that many of the foods listed as harmful by the article were the usual suspects, like wine and beer for example. Others were more of a surprise to me, because up till then I hadn't come across any mention of them being harmful to UC, like pasta and rice for example. Also fruit squashes came as a surprise to me, as up till then I thought they were a healthy alternative to tea and coffee.

It is a shame that Budenofalk is not available in the US. I hadn't realised that was the case until you mentioned that some of the medications we have in the UK may not be available elsewhere. I hope something gets done about this, it seems really odd. I guess it might be worth asking the doctor if there are Budesonide-based enemas available in the US. A quick search on the web seems to indicate that ENTOCORT is such a medication. I have no idea how suitable or effective it is but it sounds like it might be a good way to discuss Budesonide as a treatment option with doctors in the US.

bobbymanc said...

Some very surprising food positions on the FSS order - e.g. Pizza / milk at the better end and chicken and rice at the worse end. Common sense tells me that bland foods must be better for a colon susceptible to inflamation. Clearly not an exact science (albeit the text does explore reservations about linking dairy to UC)..

I, too, noticed this. Perhaps milk and pizza are better in terms of providing Thiamine but hard to digest due to the lactose. Perhaps, taking Lactaid before eating pizza or drinking milk will offset the lactose issue.

As for chicken and rice. Again, it could be anti-thiamine but better for the colon for other reasons. I find that chicken is easy to digest and gives me energy and rice helps to provide bulk. I will still keep these in my diet for these reasons.

But yes caffeine, sodas, wine are definite no-no's for me. Pork is too though. It's saturated fat, which is not easy to digest.

subdued,

I know what you mean. My first thoughts when I saw the diet was that some of foods listed as harmful, like wine and beer, did not come as a surprise to me as I had seen them mentioned a lot as being bad for UC before. Other foods, on the other hand, were a total surprise. the most shocking for me was that pasta and rice appeared so near the bottom of the list in and amongst the harmful foods.

It was a big step for me to give up pasta and rice, as these were mostly what I ate back then. I had also been avoiding red meat up till then, believing it to be harmful for UC, so starting to eat beef regularly all of a sudden took some getting use to, especially the cooking side of it as I haven't really cooked steak or mince at home that much before.

Milk appearing so high up in the list also surprised me. They say in the article that this could be due to the fact that people mostly had it with breakfast cereals which is high in thiamin, so that could be why. I still don't drink milk or take it with tea. I drink decaf tea black, not very nice to start with but got used to it now, and it is pretty much the only hot drink I have. For cold drinks, I have decaf diet coke (the bottles come wrapped in golden coloured label in the UK) at home. When eating out it is not easy to get hold of, so I have lemonade, 7-up or sprite, that sort of thing, which seems to be fine too.

Tuppence,

Comments re pizza interesting - I'd decided it was an absolute no-no recently. Assumed the cheese was the issue. Might give a margarita a go.
What do you eat with your steak? I've pretty much assumed plainish meat, potatoes and veg should is ok. I.e. quite bland, but also relatively healthy. But then again, depending on what advice I read nearly all veg has its drawbacks for UC.

Re drinks - I'd also cut out pretty much all soft drinks - mainly on the assumption that the gas was the issue, more so than the ingredients. Interesting you go for the decaf versions. I'll be trying that too.

What are your thoughts on alcohol? From my diary, and unsurprisingly, it has the worst effect on my condition - even say a couple of pints. I cut out wine and spirits several years ago - partly due to its impact on my symptoms, but also assuming the acidity / strength of the alcohol cannot be a good thing - so I was interested to see red wine so high up the list. And Bitter at the bottom of the list for that matter.
thanks

Tuppence,

It is interesting, if the diet in fact works...as my personal history is a history of much pasta, now replaced partially with rice, lots of Coke/Dr. Pepper/Pepsi/etc. plus green tea (with caffiene), and lots of chicken....so, there you go...we'll see....I always did like pork/bacon but never ate much because I thought it was bad for me....ha! Thought, i have to say, i did feel better after eating it.

imagardener2,

Thank you for your interest in my post and the information about sunflower seeds and spinach.

You are right, thiamin is the same as B1, though I'm not sure how B1 synthetic supplements compare to natural sources of thiamin. I see that spinach is also rich in iron, which would have definitely helped me back at the time of my worst flare-ups. Back then I was loosing so much blood, and couldn't hang onto food for the seemingly constant diarrhoea, so much so that I became anaemic. The nurse suggested at the time dark chocolate as a good alternative source of iron, as back then I did not eat red meat believing it to be bad for UC. The funny thing is that nowadays I eat beef two or three times a week and find it one of the best things for me. Even more funny is that because of all this I developed a taste for dark chocolate, which I hated up till then but now totally love it.

What I find really interesting about the Magee et al article, which I wrote this post about, is that it came about as a result of attempting to understand why a previous study trying to find a link between sulfur-rich foods and UC arrived at inconclusive results. The authors of the study were convinced of their hunch that there was a link but the results they collected did not show a strong enough evidence of that.

So it was back to the drawing-board. And the second time round, which this article is all about, the authors went in with a completely open mind. They simply took the approach of saying: well, if sulfur is not the link, then lets not assume anything at all and just try to see if any food ingredients have an effect on UC, be it good or bad. And what's more, let's not take the volunteers' word for how good or bad a food makes them feel, let's instead just give them a weekly sigmoidoscopy and judge it more directly based on the actual condition of their colons.

The results were surprising, in that some of the foods which conventional wisdom classed as good turned out to be not so good, and vice versa. Some results also coincided with conventional wisdom but all in all nobody could have really predicted the results. Thiamin only comes in the picture in that the authors found that it had a significant correlation with the foods which gave good sigmoidoscopy results. The more thiamin-rich the recorded weekly diet of the volunteers was, the better the sigmoidoscopy results were.

By the way, even though spinach and sunflower seeds did not feature in the results, that does not mean they are good or bad. It is just that the volunteers of the study did not consume these items in large enough quantities to form a judgement on how good or bad they are. And the same goes of course for many other foods which are not in the list.

What I liked about the list is that there were enough items (74 in total) for me to make a judgement about what to eat and what to avoid. And the other really good thing I found about this article in general is that it made me start to think differently about my food intake. I started to think in a much longer time frame than what I have been doing up till that point. I used to think something like "oh, what shall I have for dinner? I am feeling bad today - best have something which is not going to upset my UC any worse". After reading the article I started to think about what I've had all week: "oh, this week I only had beef once, so there is one good solid batch of food in my colon which is doing it good - but that was two days ago, perhaps I ought to have another good steak or maybe mince this time". I also started to reflect on what I have eaten all week, rather on just what I've had for my last meal.

Thanks again for your interest, and hope you get the chance to have a look at the article. Please let me know what you think.

i've chosen to stay on SCD because it help but i've also decided to give up or reduce at a minimum some high sulfite foods like wine, eggs. I gues for me it's the best option.

tuppenceworth said...
I see that spinach is also rich in iron, which would have definitely helped me back at the time of my worst flare-ups. Back then I was loosing so much blood, and couldn't hang onto food for the seemingly constant diarrhoea, so much so that I became anaemic. The nurse suggested at the time dark chocolate as a good alternative source of iron, as back then I did not eat red meat believing it to be bad for UC. The funny thing is that nowadays I eat beef two or three times a week and find it one of the best things for me. Even more funny is that because of all this I developed a taste for dark chocolate, which I hated up till then but now totally love it.

I too have issues with anemia. I found that spinach has been great in helping reduce inflammation; however, it contains oxalic acid, which inhibits iron absorption. It hasn't helped with rebuilding my iron levels. I've read that its best to eat spinach with iron absorption enhancers, such as meat, oranges, and grapefruit, among others. I'm now taking iron supplements. They used to really bother me, but now that I've been in remission for awhile, they don't seem to be causing me any issues.

ENIGMAWRAP,

Yes, I do live in England, and the study which produced the diet's foods list was also conducted in the UK. So I think you make a very good point indeed. Food additives and preservatives are likely to be regulated differently in the UK/Europe to the US.

On starting the diet I became obsessed with reading food labels, and would not put a thing in my mouth until I'd checked that there was no mention of sulfite/sulphite, or any of the preservative numbers E220–228. Not sure what numbering system is used in the US, so here is a list of what they are:

E220: Sulphur Dioxide
E221: Sodium sulphite
E222: Sodium hydrogen sulphite
E223: Sodium metabisuiphite
E224: Potassium metabisulphite
E225: Potassium sulphite
E226: Calcium sulphite
E227: Calcium hydrogen sulphite
E228: Potassium hydrogen sulphite

Most of the above E numbers have also been linked to provoking asthma attacks (in asthmatics) and are also known to destroy vitamin B1 (thiamin).