I generally do not like involving myself in a dispute between two people who are trying to impose their opinions on everybody else, please respect that everyone is different. Anti-med people who claim to have all the answers are just as frustrating to read as pro-med people who have all the answers. But I do want to defend the case for alternative treatments.
fredflats said...
Generally speaking, the alternative treatments mentioned in this forum have minimal to no support in high-quality peer-reviewed literature or controlled clinical trials, and some of them (e.g. gluten-free, and others) are not simply untested but moreover highly unlikely to have any effect based on what is already known about UC.
Here are the results of a sample of randomized controlled trials (RCT) determining the efficacy or effectiveness of some alternative treatments. Published by NIH in PubMed.gov.
BTW the publication you cited above is not exactly a total repudiation of TPN (total parenteral nutrition) for treatment of IBD: "TPN resulted in a disappearance of clinical symptoms and an improvement in both the inflammatory and nutritional parameters in the CD group".
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10022641CONCLUSIONS:
Plantago ovata seeds (psyllium seed dietary fiber) might be as effective as mesalamine to maintain remission in ulcerative colitis.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19878610Curcumin suppresses p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase activation, reduces IL-1beta and matrix metalloproteinase-3 and enhances IL-10 in the mucosa of children and adults with inflammatory bowel disease. We conclude that curcumin, a naturally occurring food substance with no known human toxicity, holds promise as a novel therapy in IBD.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11355324Oral therapy with the Boswellia extract or AKBA significantly reduces macroscopic and microcirculatory inflammatory features normally associated with indomethacin administration, indicating that the anti-inflammatory actions of the Boswellia extract in IBD may be due in part to boswellic acids such as AKBA.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22085500current evidence suggests that improving vitamin D status and/or using vitamin D receptor agonists may be useful in MS and IBD
And of course there is triple antibiotic or anti-MAP therapy. It doesn't work for everyone, nothing works for everyone because everyone is different. I only mention it because antibiotics are what jump-started my remission. So it makes perfect sense to me that many of us have been helped by triple antibiotic therapy.
Until very recently doctors thought it impossible that gastric and duodenal ulceration could be caused by a bacterium. But that was before the discovery of H. Pylori. We may one day isolate a specific type of bacteria that can be linked to the development of Ulcerative Colitis. In the meantime I know antibiotics worked for me and many others.
Doctors say food doesn't have anything to do with disorders of the digestive system. And for years they told their patients that probiotics are a waste of money. It is only recently that after hearing for years from their patients that some of the more progressive GIs began to concede that probiotics might be effective after all.
If you believe probiotics are useful then whether you know it or not you are recommending an alternative treatment. But if you say probiotics are useless then it would be self-evident and obvious for many of us that you don't know what you are talking about
. We all know from personal experience what works.
Diet modification is crucial for maintaining my remission. Two colonoscopies, numerous biopsies, and blood work have confirmed that I definitely have IBD. But for the past 2 years I can go weeks or months with no symptoms whatsoever. Formed stools once or twice a day, little or no urgency, and none of the extraintestinal manifestations such as crippling arthritis and serious eye inflammation that accompanied my last flare.
But if I have a slice of pizza (gluten) or clam chowder soup for lunch then I know for sure that I will have bloody diarrhea that evening. But when I avoid the gluten and other triggering foods (and take probiotics to help recover), my symptoms immediately disappear. There are other examples of IBDers taking meds for years without noticeable improvement but felt immediate relief almost overnight after making dietary changes (usually avoiding gluten). What gives you the right to repudiate our experiences?
Everyone knows that Celiac causes gastro symptoms due to gluten INTOLERANCE. But there are statistics that up to one in seven people may suffer from gluten SENSITIVITY. Gluten sensitivity manifests the same symptoms as gluten intolerance, and cannot easily be detected with blood tests.