How do gluten free diets help?

I don't think scientists have a complete understanding of how our gut works, especially with regard to gluten. There is good evidence that inflammatory bowel disease is either due to, or causes, an upset in the gut flora, and you need a certain kind of gut flora to fully digest gluten. Those with a genetic condition that causes celiac disease are missing certain enzymes, I think, that are required to digest gluten. It takes both your body's normal production of those enzymes, AND the proper gut flora, to digest gluten completely.

Undigested gluten causes a lot of unfortunate things. In celiac disease it damages the villi in the small intestine and eventually causes poor nutritional absorption and many other problems. For those who are "merely" gluten intolerant, I think the ill effects are more varied.

For the first 10 years of my diagnosis I toyed with the idea of eliminating gluten but did not test positive for celiac disease and continued pursuing treatment for my IBD with medications. My GI has long felt that I was not "sick enough" to warrant modifying my meds to more aggressive treatment, so facing a future that included diarrhea, cramping, anemia, fatigue and joint pain without stronger meds, I thought I'd eliminate gluten and see what happened. Within 2 weeks I had better concentration at work and less fatigue. Within 3 weeks the soft stool was completely gone. My joint pain has continued to recede, although it is not completely gone. My motility issues are still with me. My GI was pleased that I'd done this and I am too.

So without knowing really what's up with you, Max89, I'd say it's worth a shot to go gluten free for 3 weeks or a month and see how you feel. There's nothing to lose, really. It's not that hard to do.

I'm not having any issues with diarrhea or urgency. It's the opposite for me, since my UC is at its worst around the rectum. I've eliminated diary from my diet, but I'm still seeing lots of bright red blood on some days. It's not hemmorhoids or fissures as I never strain, and there's also no pain. I have no idea what to do now.

I'm concerned because the symptoms I'm getting right now are close to what I had before I was diagnosed and started taking 5-ASAs. The bleeding scares me and I want it to stop.

Post Edited (Max89) : 12/26/2011 12:12:25 AM (GMT-7)

If you're a non responder to a gluten free diet, most of the time they're substituting wheat with more inflammatory foods (like legumes, dairy, eggs, meats etc) and think gluten free made them worse

OR

they didn't do the diet long enough.




Usually symptoms like gas, constipation, diarrhea can stop in 2-3 days g-free, but for others like me and my mother it can take 2 weeks up to 2 months to fully feel its benifits. Gluten is hard to digest for normal individuals that are healthy. Research with "gluten supplements" shown that people would get gas and abdominal pains from it. And its not an essential food so there's nothing wrong never eating it. Might want to watch B vitamin intake when going g-free.

10 years of colitis experience curing with diet :) Cheers mate! Hope this helps.

If you dont mind me chiming in:

Inflammatory foods:
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/foods-that-cause-inflammation.html

Anti Inflammatory foods:
http://theconsciouslife.com/top-10-anti-inflammatory-foods.htm

Dont expect all anti Inflammatory foods to work like a drug or some other kind of pain killer, but you should expect the inflammatory foods to cause a lot of issues.

Example: Processed Sugars causes my joints to hurt really bad. Eggs cause me to flare up. Milk or anything with lots of lactose cause some urgency. Caffeine is just brutal! I love to make myself some natural and fresh ginger tea (ginger shavings over hot water via coffee filter) It never did the trick because I was adding honey to it. Take the honey out and it does the job really well.

it has 2 effects on our system:
1. it is a natural laxative. so you'll need the bathroom sooner than normal. usually if you have UC you need the bathroom sonner anyway. so it's your choise to have a cup of coffee or not :).

2. it has an irritative effect on gut mucosa. if you are flaring and drinking a cup of coffee you'll probably make things worse because your mucosa is already irritated. it's like dropping salt on a open wound.


oh, and it does seem to contain a lot of anti-oxidants. i've saw some studies that correlate decrease of colon cancer risk in people who have at least a cup per day.

coffee it's a strong habit. most of us like to fool ourselves that it does not bother us at all. but i really doubt it.

P.S.
I am writtign this with a cup of coffee in my hand :) the one and only i will allow myself this week.