Novel Diet Shows Promise in Treating Children With Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis

This was posted on Facebook. Spoiler alert: It's SCD.

Would like to read the whole study. Though small, it is interesting. Would like to read and learn more about the changes in gut bacteria.

It seems to imply SCD as the "sole intervention" - so no meds if that is what is meant by that. That I find really interesting. Maybe they will follow with a much larger study now.

News story:
www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/novel-diet-shows-promise-in-treating-children-with-crohns-disease-and-ulcerative-colitis-300383912.html

Study: journals.lww.com/jcge/Abstract/publishahead/Clinical_and_Fecal_Microbial_Changes_With_Diet.98120.aspx

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And I know, I know.... everyone has their opinion on SCD, haha. Even myself. If it wasn't so darn tough to follow though.. All that darn cooking. Maybe the trick is to do it when first diagnosed - wait to long and maybe no effect.

I introduced SCD to someone who had first symptoms and was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease via colonoscopy within two months. He went 1,000% strict SCD and fully recovered taking no meds whatsoever. Eventually he regained his weight loss and now seems perfectly healthy at about 185 lbs. If I push him he admits that to much junk food will lead to the start of loose stool symptoms but very minor. Cleaning up his diet brings him back and he's good to go. He's the only person I know that I have watched 'recover' - and admittedly I've always been highly envious, haha. He says he is 'cured' - I say he is in prolonged remission - either way he's better and has no food intolerances anymore (even wheat) unless he eats candy and junk food to much. So its pretty awesome.

Post Edited (Canada Mark) : 12/29/2016 9:32:21 PM (GMT-7)

Mark, are you aware that the ccfa is doing a large trial comparing SCD and the Mediterranean diet? 2 million bucks. It's on their website. I don't have the link.

@charile, I didn't know that. Good for them - about time.

@brucen - That's amazing. I was 100% strict for a long time - over a year. It made a significant difference. I hear ya on the inconvenience thing. Eventually I ran into issue with cooking/food/work. I remember trying to travel (via road trips) for work. Was a nightmare. Packing a cooler full of food etc, haha.

I'm in remission now but loosely follow it. I return to it for a while the moment I experience IBS like symptoms and my system seems to re-set itself.

That's such good news that diet modification is being seriously studied, no matter if it's a small study that can lead to larger studies. Wonderful if children can be helped as I cannot imagine the stress IBD can cause to a child, their parents and family members, bad enough dealing with it as an adult.

Must I remain on these diets for the rest of my life? Yes, whether you take medications or limit your diet that is for life and neither cures you. As a true cure means no diet restrictions and no medications thereafter.

I agree with imagardner. Same scenario with me.

When I was brutally ill, SCD got me through it and actually made my medications work better - especially Remicade though I eventually had to stop it. And as mentioned when I try 'new' additions and they backfire, it get's me out of trouble. But overall, a few years later and in remission I am much more tolerant of a variety of foods that are not SCD legal. In fact my gut loves some of them. Restaurant and even fast food (McDonalds) french fries, home made popcorn being examples, but there are many more. These would have did me in with active IBD.

I think I have come to accept that the food intolerances I have now are a consequence of my IBD that I may never get over. Hopefully one day that will change though!

The funny thing is I tried it 3 times, all that happened is I lost weight.
The real tuff part was no beer.
Old Mike

Gotschall recommended never going back to the standard American or Western diet of high sugar and high complex carbs, stating her daughter went to 80% SCD after 7 years of strict adherence. You can put me in the boat of those who strayed after feeling good and had symptoms return. Still trying to work through what is coincidence and what is actually a result of the dietary change. Very hard to distinguish but I'm hoping this year and half personal experiment with SCD was not for nothing.

I guess if some believe UC and CD are nothing more than dysbiosis, then it all gets very simple.
Good luck with that.

Like everything else (meds/naturals) we all seem to react different. I don't know if anyone ever flared from SCD. Would be interesting to hear of. But I do know many (especially with UC) do not seem to react to it. However there is a lady near me that has controlled her Ulcerative Colitis with SCD only for many years now - maybe 20. She turned it into a career and makes/sells SDC foods and cookbooks. Her sister has UC as well, but hates the dietary limitation, so she opted for Remicade, which controls it for her.

I have often wondered if the inflammation is deep/severe enough, perhaps a different immune response to food antigens is triggered.

One of the MAP microbiologists had mentioned that he believes that once the inflammatory response is reduced or eliminated, the population of immune cells responding to food antigens also dies off over time. He said the problem is that some of the 'resident' immune cells can have very long lifetimes. So there is always small surviving population. Over time, because of this, the reaction is less severe each time they are exposed but at the same time, continual exposure does not let the population die off. - so a bit of a catch.

It's a mouthful, but made sense.

FSL, who said it wasn't worth trying?
That being said, the rubbery notions around 'good and bad' bacteria are misleading. If the fallback proposal is that there is less chance of some kind of food antigen response (allegedly causing bowel inflammation and exacerbating symptoms) because foods are so limited, then that is a different position.
Again, because it is so individual and does not work for a lot of people without their individual modifications, it is more of a trial and error process - not a hard and fast recipe.