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Anyone familiar with Dr. Gerald Mullin?

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Posted 2/4/2012 2:26 PM (GMT 0)
I have been doing a little research on autoimmunity and natural treatments in IBD and came upon this Dr who is an integrative GI at Johns Hopkins. Focuses on nutrition and IBD, has a couple books, including "The Inside Tract", which I am reading now.

Anyone read anything by him or have any opinions? I am looking more intensely into nutrition and less toxic UC remedies than what I am on currently as it seems my body doesn't seem to handle immunomodulators or biologics well--my colon is doing okay, but I have been getting multiple infections and feel inflammation is at the core of all this.
Posted 2/4/2012 2:33 PM (GMT 0)
He isn't associated with either Ernst Hoess or Alfredo Guarnera is he?

Just kidding. :-)
Posted 2/4/2012 3:58 PM (GMT 0)
(haha)

Aquafly - yes I do know about him. Are you anywhere near JH? Maybe you can see him to see if he can offer you anything out of the ordinary. Basically, the story is that he was just a regular GI until he developed some sort of GI issue (don't know what it was) and became a "complicated patient" so had to heal himself with diet etc. Anyway, he's come out with a book in Andrew Weil's Integrative Medicine series called "integrative gastroenterology". It's available on amazon and is about $50. I did buy it but sent it back because I basically knew everything in it and have tried most of it. If I had bought it at the beginning following my daughter's diagnosis I might have felt differently. It attempts to "scientifically" assess alternative modalities but it doesn't really work. You could just type what you wanted into pub med and find similar or better studies for free. I don't know, nothing earth shattering. I'd be curious to know what he actually uses in his practice though?
Posted 2/4/2012 4:16 PM (GMT 0)
Meredith,

I am not familiar with this doc, however I can tell you that from extensive research I have done, inflammation is the underlying factor in many diseases, including IBD, arthritis, cancer, and many others. That's the reason I've radically changed my diet to Paleo, which is anti-inflammatory. Even if you don't eat a lot of processed foods and HFCS, the western diet of grain fed animal products has a ratio of omega 3:omega 6 of 1:20, which is highly unhealthy. The ideal ratio should be 1:1, and this can be accomplished by eating grass-fed animal products. Eating Paleo diet is very healthy. And the long-term benefits of anti-inflammation are great.
Posted 2/4/2012 4:36 PM (GMT 0)
Thanks for the quick replies. I have read quite a bit about Dr. Mullin and what he does. killcolitis, your perspective is an interesting one as I also feel I have done a ton of research and wonder how revolutionary it really is, and no I am not anywhere near Johns Hopkins. His book "The Inside Tract" talks a lot about using nutrition to heal your body and he is big into elimination diets. I am going to for diary free(no problem there as I already am), sugar free, gluten free, alcohol and caffeine free for awhile and see how I feel.

I strongly feel that the inflammation that the Cimzia quieted down in my colon(and has its own fun side effects, like me not being able to fight anything off) is now looking for other places in my body to create problems, namely my sinuses.

InSoFla, I am also looking into eating more grass-fed animal products, are those usually organic as well? Man, organic meat is expensive! BTW, Dr. Mullin does talk about this very thing as one way to clean up your diet and decrease inflammation. I will look into the Paleo-diet, though I hope its not too meat heavy, as I am not much of a meat eater, mostly chicken and seafood. I am definitely focusing on decreasing inflammation in my body before I beg my doc for a small dose of pred just so I can finally kick all the sinus meds I have been taking. You know its bad when you want prednisone!
Posted 2/4/2012 4:40 PM (GMT 0)
I definitely think it's worth a try. A lot of people have reported good success on diets like paleo (including scd, though it's higher carb most people have to "tweak"the carbs to see a better effect). There's also the work of the weston price foundation and wolfgang lutz who uses a low carb diet to treat many inflammatory conditions including UC and CD. Can't hurt. Good luck to you!
Personally I find researching online more useful than his book, you can find all the info you need and if you need more info re: a specific diet you can buy a book or two on that. His book in the Weil series is a very general overview.
Posted 2/4/2012 5:45 PM (GMT 0)
Meredith,
I stopped eating chicken because it's high in arachonic acid which coverts into omega 6 = inflammation.
I do the Paleo, with no carbs, bit lots of veggies and salads.
Organic is not the same as grass-fed, I will post a cheat sheet later for you .
Also, I found whole foods grass-fed meats to be too expensive, so I found a local farmer who was half priced of whole foods, and you can do the same : www.eatwild.com

Hope this helps.
Posted 2/4/2012 5:58 PM (GMT 0)
Insofla,
Interesting point about the chicken. Do you mind me asking which meat you do eat? No carbs mean green veg only? In your tag line you mention fruit but no carbs would exclude that? I'm asking because we did do something with my daughter but since she is a child she just could not take it. Lots of weight loss, constant extreme hunger and though it helped it did not result in remission.
At the time we were giving her green veg, chicken, pumpkin ("high carb"), no eggs, beef, lamb and a few other things. However, since she was not going into remission as she was supposed to the person who was advising us on the diet suggested the pumpkin was too high carb, and when we removed that that the green veg was the problem (sulphites? Sulphates? whatever, can't remember the distinction at the moment). Anyway, I'd love to know what you consume just to compare it to what we were doing. Do you have any dairly? Eggs?
Thanks !
Posted 2/4/2012 7:42 PM (GMT 0)
Interesting about chicken, though I will say I looked up the Paleo diet and all that meat consumption is not something I can handle...The high fat thing I just don't get, no one can convince me eating full fat anything unless I am a baby is good for you. The info about dairy I found a bit inconsistent, as in no dairy except full fat cheese or heavy cream sometimes. I am still on board for cutting out dairy and gluten for now.
Posted 2/5/2012 1:24 AM (GMT 0)
killcolitis,

I eat:

lots of salmon (smoked, and fresh)

Lots of:

grass-fed lamb (ground)

grass-fed beef (ground and filet mignon)

grass-fed bison (filet mignon)

grass-fed all beef hot dogs (no nitrates!)

grass-fed eggs - but only the yolks as I cannot tolerate the egg whites

steamed lobster when i can afford it

and plenty of butter too, and himalyan salt

as  far as veggies: string beans, broccoli, cauliflower, salads, avocado,

some nuts: cashews and pistachios

Fruits: blackberries, strawberries, blueberries, mangos sometimes too but not often

Dairy: almond milk, but sometimes 1 x per month I indulge in manchego cheese (hard sheep cheese) and some goat brie, but NO cow dairy, no yogurt at all (can't handle it), NO beans of any kind, NO CORN, NO Potatoes, No gluten, No Wheat, No grains

And I do enjoy dark chocolate @ 81% cacao (but make sure there is no HFCS in it)

and 2 whey protein shakes made with almond milk (Dr. Mercola's Pro-Optimal Whey Protein in chocolate flavour, I love these!)

Hope this helps.  Let me know how I can help...


 

Posted 2/5/2012 1:30 AM (GMT 0)
aquafly79,

I understand your reticence about meat consumption.

But meat is important in order to get CLA, which you can only get through meat consumption.

Meat is a complete protein.

There is lots of mis-information about the supposed fat content of meat. But did you know good fat is actually good for you?

Especially when you're talking about the grass-fed meats vs. grain-fed meats, because the ratio of omega 3:omega 6 in grass-fed meats and eggs is 1:1 VERSUS grain-fed meats and eggs is 1:20 - this is a VERY unhealthy ratio which promotes inflammation, and inflammation is the root cause of most diseases.

I don't do dairy or gluten or carbs, so I guess technically I am doing a modified Paleo. It works, and I've felt a significant decrease in my inflammation.


 

Posted 2/5/2012 1:06 PM (GMT 0)
Aquafly,

Here's the "cheat" sheet I promised to post for you.

There is a difference between organic and grass-fed.

Just because it's organic doesn't mean it's grass-fed.

Hope this helps.

http://www.sustainabletable.org/spread/handouts/Glossary_of_Meat_Production.pdf

ORGANIC

In order to be labeled “organic,” a product, its

producer, and the farm where the ingredients

come from must meet the USDA’s organic

standards and must be certified by a USDAapproved

food-certifying agency. Organic foods

cannot be grown using synthetic fertilizers,

chemicals, or sewage sludge, cannot be

genetically modified, and cannot be irradiated.

Organic meat and poultry must be fed only

organically-grown feed (without any animal byproducts)

and cannot be treated with hormones

or antibiotics. Furthermore, the animals must

have access to the outdoors, and ruminants

(animals with multi-chambered stomachs that

chew their cud) must have access to pasture

(but don’t actually have to go outdoors and

graze on pasture to be considered organic).

GRASS-FED

These animals eat grasses from weaning

to slaughter. Their diet should not be

supplemented with grain, animal byproducts,

or synthetic hormones. They should

not be given antibiotics to promote growth

or prevent disease (though they may be

given antibiotics to treat disease). Note that

“grass-fed” does not guarantee that the

animal was pastured or pasture-raised. While

most grass-fed animals are pasture-raised,

some may still be confined and fed a steady

diet of grasses. While the USDA concurs

with these standards, they are only voluntary.

Farmers and ranchers may request that

their use of the grass-fed label be verified

through an independent auditing process,

but are not required to do so.

You can also go on: www.eatwild.com and see the info on the importance of CLA, which you can only get from meat.

Here's a link to the published references on it:

http://eatwild.com/references.html


Posted 2/5/2012 2:09 PM (GMT 0)
So there are grass-fed chickens/eggs? I haven't seen that as an option, including at places like Whole Foods. I usually buy grain-fed eggs that have not been given hormones, antibiotics, and other crap.
Posted 2/5/2012 4:06 PM (GMT 0)
To InSoFla and others who have tried or who are doing exclusion diets like paleo and SCD or even just gluten free, how long did it take until you noticed a difference in your health?

My plan is to take out gluten, sugar and dairy, coffee and alcohol for two weeks and see how I am feeling. Would love to know how long it will be until this inflammation stops controlling my body.
Posted 2/5/2012 4:11 PM (GMT 0)
I think some people see an immediate effect but others take months. I would personally give it 3 months at least but I've heard some people say 6 weeks. There are people on the scd forums who don't see any significant improvement until a year or longer into the diet. they just stick with it I guess..
Posted 2/5/2012 5:32 PM (GMT 0)
Meredith

I am 2 years into a modified SCD diet. Before becoming successful at diet mod. I tried SCD and many other UC diets unsuccessfully, meaning I couldn't see any improvement in UC symptoms.
You ask how long it took to see improvement. 2 years ago when I started diet mod. again I only went gluten-free and saw improvements right away, like 2-3 days, bleeding stopped and I had never seen that before without enemas involved.
That may have been co-incidental or maybe I was lucky but it gave me the courage to try diet mod. one more time.

I want to say that I never thought bread was a problem for me, it seemed to be the one thing I could eat that didn't cause problems. And truthfully I could never point to any particular food that caused problems, it was all over the place.
2 years later I think bread was a problem in shutting my colon down into C which seemed good when D causes so many more problems. But of course it's only temporary relief and just a seesaw between C and D and utterly confusing.

Diet modification is so difficult that unless you see some improvement it's very hard to maintain it for months and months.
Your colon may be so out of sorts that it will take some time to be able to calm down. I feel mine was that way.
All I can suggest is to remove the most common offenders (wheat/gluten, dairy, sugar including fruit and juices) for 30 days and keep a food journal. I personally would not take supplements during that time (but do take tolerated oral meds and enemas) so as not to confuse issues. My colon is intolerant of many supplements but I couldn't tell that until I had a baseline established of what food was definitely OK.

Gaining the knowledge of what your colon is OK with is so valuable because when things go out of whack you can go back to those foods.

I think I failed at SCD the first time because I cannot tolerate yogurt or most fruits and juices, all of which are allowed SCD. I had to remove these before getting better. It was difficult to realize that but better health is worth it.
After 2 years I can have some dairy like hard cheese and somefruit which means my colon is better.

Best of luck with your detective work. Listen to your gut, don't go by anyone elses.
Posted 2/5/2012 7:40 PM (GMT 0)
bookworm21,

So there are grass-fed chickens/eggs? I haven't seen that as an option, including at places like Whole Foods. I usually buy grain-fed eggs that have not been given hormones, antibiotics, and other crap.

Yes, there are grass-fed chickens and eggs that come from grass-fed chickens, but Whole Foods doesn't carry them - actually, you should probably ask the manager in that dept. Even if they are hormone and antibiotics free, if they are still fed via grain, it's unhealthy (with regard to omega 3 to omega 6 ratio).

Grass-fed eggs can usually be found from locally organic farms, but again, you have to do your homework because organic doesn't equal grass-fed.

If you go on this website: www.eatwild.com, you can find local farmers to you in your area, who are exclusively grass-fed animal products farming.

Let me know what you think.

Posted 2/5/2012 7:44 PM (GMT 0)
Aquafly,

I first made changes to my diet by going SCD, actually modified to: dairy, wheat, gluten free - I did notice a discernable change with regard to my UC (although I was still bleeding, and the only that helped me for that was LDN), I saw differences within 2-3 weeks.

Then when I went modified Paleo - with grass-fed animal products instead of grain-fed, I found that made a huge difference in my inflammatory levels and fibromyalgia pains - it took a about 10 days to see noticeable differences.

Let us know how you make out.

Posted 2/5/2012 7:46 PM (GMT 0)
killcolitis,

Just curious, how did my diet - modified Paleo, compare to your daughter's?

Did you find any correlations or helpful info?

Posted 2/5/2012 11:41 PM (GMT 0)
Yes, he is one of my doctors.
Posted 2/6/2012 12:34 AM (GMT 0)
Insofla,
She was having chicken, grassfed lamb, pumpkin, zucchini, and really don't remember what else. Salmon? No eggs, no dairy, no fruit, no grains. We added spinach, broccoli. At first we saw miraculous results, then we went backwards bigtime an were told to give her meat only. That wasn't going to work for us - already she was starving and it was just a bad situation all around. There is something to it for sure but it wasn't enough for my daughter. I do believe she has an underlying infection in her case.
Alba - that's interesting. If you don't mind me asking, how different is his approach from the standard GIs? Does he offer additional testing (food allergy, intolerance, infectious etc)?
Posted 2/6/2012 2:07 AM (GMT 0)
killcolitis,

As I mentioned prior, I did cut out chicken entirely because it's high in omega 6's.

Also, I don't do well with zucchini or pumpkin. Have you tried cutting those out and seeing if you get any better results?

I know she needs healthy calories - due to weight loss, what about avocado?

Have you tried GSE - grapefruit seed extract - for elimination of any underlying infection?

It is quite powerful, and is being used in hospitals too.

What do you think? ... just trying to help :-)

Posted 2/6/2012 2:31 AM (GMT 0)

killcolitis said...
Insofla,
She was having chicken, grassfed lamb, pumpkin, zucchini, and really don't remember what else. Salmon? No eggs, no dairy, no fruit, no grains. We added spinach, broccoli. At first we saw miraculous results, then we went backwards bigtime an were told to give her meat only. That wasn't going to work for us - already she was starving and it was just a bad situation all around. There is something to it for sure but it wasn't enough for my daughter. I do believe she has an underlying infection in her case.
Alba - that's interesting. If you don't mind me asking, how different is his approach from the standard GIs? Does he offer additional testing (food allergy, intolerance, infectious etc)?

He checks for a lot of infectious agents (hopkins has a great lab) and doesn't rule out an infection cause. He's big on diet, butyrate, very conservative with immunomodulators and biologics. Asks about cancers in the family - my uncle died of lymphoma and he was not comfortable with the 6mp risks in my situation. I also got an endoscopy and camera pill for the small intestines - he is very clear that CD is always a possibility, even after having UC for years. He's up to date with most of the research and willing to listen. Also gives the breathing test for bacterial overgrowth but I decided to skip this one while in remission.

My other doctor is a family friend and also great with alternative treatments - most of his patients in remission are on no sugar no gluten diet. This second doctor is a huge supporter of fecal transplant but he can't do it in his office for liability issues.

Have you looked into Dr Borody?
Posted 2/6/2012 2:43 AM (GMT 0)
Insofla
I don't think I could feed her just meat and basically no veg, fruit, dairy, grains. And no chicken to as well? GSE, yes, used it. Didn't do much. wouldn't mind trying agin. What dose do you take. If I recall, she didn't have a negative reaction to it like she did to WOO.
Alba,
Yes, we have Borody doesn't treat children otherwise I would have been there years ago. Interesting, our GI also believes in MAP, infectious cases, experiments with abx to treat, is a believer in FT but can't facilitate, enthusiastic about trying it at home, tries to avoid immumomodulators but accepts that they are necessary when asas/probiotics/abx don't work.I guess that's pretty rare? She's not a believer in dietary modification at all though.
Posted 2/6/2012 4:01 AM (GMT 0)
Alba,

Very interesting to hear from someone who is a patient of Dr. Mullin. I like my current doc but he definitely subscribes to the meds and then more meds route. I guess cuz I battled a flare most of last year that was not totally abnormal, but I would love to have a doc who will actually have a conversation about diet. Its also interesting that you mentioned he says Crohns is always a possibility, just had that conversation with my doc, as mouth sores he says usually occur with Crohn's patients. But that's for another thread..

InSoFla, imagardener and killcolitis, thanks for the feedback on diet modifications..I can't say for sure how long I can commit to staying away from gluten and sugar(the rest I mentioned earlier aren't a big deal for me to avoid), but I guess if I really saw a difference I would stick with it. Its a bit disconcerting though to think how long I would have to do this to see any changes. The changes I am looking for right now aren't even purely colon related, more so a lessening of my chronic sinus inflammation, and the sooner the better.

Imagardener, I don't know about skipping all my supplements--I see the point, to discriminate my reactions, but I have to hope all, and I do mean all, of them are doing something. It would feel almost like skipping my meds. Interesting though. What supplements did you find you are intolerant to?
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