Beta-Carotene may be helping me.

A little background:

I've had UC for many years now, first got UC symptoms after quitting smoking, always my UC would become very mild after resuming smoking, and would flare up again shortly after quitting(within 2 weeks, always).
Over the years I've resumed and quit many many times.

The longest I went was 7 months, during which time my UC progressed to very severe, eventually resulting in anemia, a chronic fever, swollen joints, bloodshot eyes, dozens of bms\day, and finally hospitalization, at which time I resumed smoking again and had a complete reversal of symptoms.

I also want to add that even during my smoking periods, I still had UC, its just that that it was contained as mild proctitis, small amounts of mucus, and blood only when I strained, and mild urgency, other then that I was normal.

Now I'll get to the point, 8 months ago I changed my diet to "paleo" basically all I did was went for a 1:1 PUFA balance, and stopped eating processed, sugars, and nightshade veggies, since potatoes are nightshades, and needing a starchy vegetable for a carbohydrate source I started eating sweet potatoes everyday(1-2+ everyday).

about 2 months later ALL symptoms went away, I wasn't sure what to think of that because I honestly didn't truly believe a diet change would do that, at best I hoped for an improvement.

After a couple more months of no symptoms, I decided to try quitting smoking again(being scared of one day getting cancer or COPD).

Strangely, My UC never came back, 4 months or so after quitting I havent even had so much as a cramp. I go once a day and can count on one hand how many times I've gone twice in a day.

I want to also add that I haven't used UC medications since December, as I didnt see the point, as smoking was keeping me Okay.

A few days ago I seen something about beta-carotene being good for mucus membranes and Immune system regulation, that got me thinking, I've been eating copious amounts of orange fleshed sweet potatoes everyday for 8 months, which are very High sources of beta-carotene.

Further investigation on Google brought up enormous amounts of info, of particular note was that it has been found that people with IBD have low amounts of beta-carotene.

This Study link is very much worth reading:
(Coincidentally this study was released yesterday)

http://www.ibdsupport.org/forums/topic/166498-pubmed-mechanistic-insight-into-beta-carotene-mediated-protection-against-ulcerative-colitis-associated-local-and-systemic-damage-in-mice/


Also, beta-carotene must be converted by the body into Vitamin A, and unlike vitamin A, you can not have too much beta-carotene.


So to sum it up, I have not taken meds for 8 months, nor have I smoked for 4 months, as history has taught me, I should be an upside down volcano by now, but instead I don't even have the slightest symptom.

It may be the beta carotene, or it may just be the prebiotic fiber from all these sweet potatoes, it may be the diet or the PUFA balance, or all of the above working synergytically, its hard to know, But regardless, I figured I'd share this.

And for those who made it this far I apologize for the length of this read, all the best.

That's pretty cool! I would give sweet potatoes a try. I rarely cook lately so it would be tough for me to find them. I am happy you're having luck. You should consider taking something for maintenance.

I can't say one way or the other on beta carotene believe I supplemented in the past,no effect.

Here is an article on excess vitamins, specific mention of supplementing beta carotene in one human study

as a problem with cancer.

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-07-antioxidants-cancers-dont.html

 

Anyhow to my point sweet potatoes contain protease inhibitors/trypsin inhibitors of which some survive cooking/baking but not microwaving.

If these inhibitors can survive to the colon then they can inhibit excess digestive protease that was not deactivated,

or better yet bacterial protease, both of which can dissolve mucus.

If the mucus is dissolved then bacteria can get to the colon cells and set off an immune reaction.

Also sweet potatoes contain lots of fiber and NSP,which can get to the colon and feed butyrate producing

bacteria,all the fiber can also alter populations of bacteria.

As you can see there are other things going on besides beta carotene.

Sweet potato may be an all in one food that might be real good for UC.

 

I might suggest this mechanism as the possible reason for your improvement.

Old Mike

PS: Smoking alters immune response,thickens mucus viscosity,alters bacterial populations.

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12906353

some anti cancer effect on colon cells

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3671082/

trypsin inhibitor tnf sweet potato

http://otl.sinica.edu.tw/en/index.php?t=9&group_id=16&article_id=627

 

 

 

Post Edited (Old Mike) : 8/6/2014 7:27:43 AM (GMT-6)

CDN26 said...
I started eating sweet potatoes everyday(1-2+ everyday)...
about 2 months later ALL symptoms went away

Old Mike said...
I can't say one way or the other on beta carotene believe I supplemented in the past,no effect

Thank you for sharing about sweet potatoes. Need to give regularly eating sweet potatoes a try.

But I hope that people don't get the wrong idea and try to take beta carotene as a supplement. Old Mike is right that it might cause problems. My theory, (and this is just my personal belief), is that the reason why beta carotene supplements alone were dangerous is because they are not balanced.

When you take beta carotene alone as a supplement you do not receive the many alpha, beta, Gamma, delta, epsilon, and zeta-carotenes that come as a package deal when you consume natural foods like sweet potatoes and carrots.

This is easiest to understand with the B complex vitamins. If you take too much of vitamin B3 alone, yes the body will excrete the excess amounts that you don't need. But your body will also excrete B6 and maybe the rest of the B complex along with it. That is why you can get a deficiency of vitamin B complex if you supplement with only one vitamin in that complex.

We want the protease inhibitors if they can get to the colon.
I don't know if they make it or not.
The other side of that is if they interfere with our normal digestive proteases,might not be a good thing.
But at this time based on the OP's findings,seem to help with UC.
OM

Thanks OM.

So would protease enzymes encourage protease inhibitors or do the opposite? Have not got my head around what protease is or what it does - do you have any threads on it OM?

Thanks OM, read through some of that again. Remember my confusion now that most of the foods on the list of protease inhibitors make me feel worse. Maybe one needs though to fight through that until the protease stops fighting back.

Sweet potato was not mentioned on the lists that I saw though of foods high in protease inhibitors. Could just be though that they didn't include it rather than it not meeting the levels of chickpeas, spinach, broccoli.

Noted though that there was much discussion about protease perhaps being necessary to work against blood clotting. As we know, UC people are at high risk of blood clots and would often have high clotting factors on blood tests. So maybe the body is working to heighten protease to thin the blood and inadvertently destroying our colon mucous?

Sorry, seem to have moved away from thread subject of beta-carotene

I was just going to say sweet potatoes contain many more items.

C, chlorogenic acid, caffeic acid, quercetin, and rutin are abundant,plus other antioxidants.

Quercetin can down regulate are good friend TNF.

Believe will start eating them again.

Anything that can keep UC in remission after quitting smoking, is exhibiting a powerful effect.

Old Mike

Post Edited (Old Mike) : 8/1/2014 10:28:09 AM (GMT-6)

Watch this video on sweet potatoes.

As an aside do not microwave,  destroys the protease inhibitors, normal heating leaves around 30%.

Old Mike

http://nutritionfacts.org/video/anti-cancer-potential-of-sweet-potato-proteins/

I was thinking about that when I posted,but did not mention juicing raw sweet potatoes.
Taking too much trypsin inhibitor/protease inhibitors might interfere with the normal pancreatic trypsin digestive enzymes,also could mess with the pancreas. But they are a food staple in the Solomon Islands and New Guinea,

so perhaps not a problem.
The only effect I saw years ago from trying digestive enzymes was that I could drink more,without
feeling it. Cant find much on IBD in New Guinea but here is something,below. IBD is rare,1990 info.
Old Mike

Title

Remove from marked Records  Tropical arthritis in Papua New Guinea: a reactive arthritis. Back ← Abstract ↓ Descriptors ↓ Top ↑

Authors

Akama, H.; Lloyd, A.; Naraqi, S.

Correspondence

Medical Journal of Australia 1990 Vol. 153 No. 6 pp. 362

ISSN

0025-729X

Record Number

19912082344

Abstract

The correspondent, who writes from Japan in reference to the article by Lloyd et al. [see the abstract above], observes that reactive arthritis is rare in Japan, possibly because HLA-B27 occurs in only 0.8% of Japanese compared with 7.5% in Caucasians. He enquires whether reactive arthritis (or Reiter's syndrome) occurs in Papua New Guinea in association with inflammatory bowel disease.

In their reply (pp. 362-363) Lloyd and Naraqi reaffirm that reactive arthritis (which differs from Reiter's syndrome in that conjunctivitis and urethritis do not occur) is the usual cause of "tropical arthritis". The cause of this reactive arthritis in Papua New Guinea has not been elucidated. Inflammatory bowel disease is not a cause of reactive arthritis in Papua New Guinea where ulcerative colitis is rare and Crohn's disease does not seem to occur.

[The term "tropical arthritis", in reference to a mysterious, oligoarthritis of unknown cause which is said to affect young men and women in various tropical countries, has probably outlived its usefulness.]

Post Edited (Old Mike) : 8/3/2014 10:02:53 AM (GMT-6)

C. perfringens has recently been suggested as a possible trigger for MS. Seems there's no winning with all of this :-(

Gary here is one of my protease inhibitor threads.

If you wonder what happened to BBI,Bowman Birk Inhibitor, the company who was doing the extractions

from soybeans decided there was not enough interest to continue.  I have been looking for alternative sources

of protease inhibitors for quite sometime,I am shocked that I never happened to run across sweet potatoes in the

past. Anyhow I also have a thread on spinach and sunflower seed protease inhibitors, perhaps why they help some people, but for me the sunflower seeds contain too much arginine.

Old Mike

https://www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=38&m=2966352

Post Edited (Old Mike) : 8/4/2014 11:46:25 PM (GMT-6)

Old mike, you really got me busy with all this stuff you manage to dig up, very interesting.

Am I understanding this correctly that the pigbell should only be a concern if on a low protein diet and living places where foodbourne outbreaks are common? Papua New Guinea where the pigbel disease name came from, the average yearly consumption of sweet potatoes is 500lbs per person, I'll assume that most people in PNG would have a difficult time affording meat, and do not have the same safe handling regulations of meat that more developed countries have.

Ive never actually weighed my meals, but I can say for sure that I will not reach 500lbs in a year, some of these sweet potatoes I eat are rather small skinny things, that cooked will just take a generous Portion of the plate.
If my remission is from the sweet potatoes, then I can say that you don't need heaping amounts, just a decent quantity, 1-2 times a day, everyday, without missing a day.

Also must say that I started this with mild symptoms, cannot say how this would go if the flare is moderate-severe, as sweet potatoes are more stringy and fibery than, say, regular potatoes, may be hard to tolerate, can't say for sure.

Also, perhaps TMI, but for what ever this may signify, before adding sweet potatoes to my regular diet, I had very bad smelling gas. Like clear the room, WMD. I had bad smelling gas before UC as well. The reason I mention this is I see others report bad smelling gas leading up to and during UC.
After a few weeks that went away and it had very little smell, although the frequency of passing gas didn't change and may have even increased.