Diet (SCD especially) how long does it take to see results?

Oligodar said...
I have read somewhere that Elaine Gottschall claims that SCD works for 70 percent people with IBD.

Seems a bit overly optimistic to me on 70% lol. There's no real research to back up that ascertain, I bet.

Good luck, give it a try but don't bet-the-farm on SCD. If your husband needs a surgery, then SCD is unlikely to change that at all. Generally diets work better for those with mild symptoms remaining, not severe.

In the event he needs a surgery, he will do fine and thrive. A number of posters here have had the surgery and are living and loving life without doctors, medications, or UC flares.

I've seen it NOT work for way more people than I've seen it work for - though I don't know everyone's process. It seems like there are too many variables to say what's worked and what hasn't. It didn't do anything for me personally.

In the book elaine puts a lot of enphasis on "starving out the bad bacteria" but neglects the fact that the diet is rich in probiotics (yoghurt) and prebiotics (lots of vegetables!) So it's probably at least as much about feeding the good bacteria as starving out the bad ones. In addition to cutting out junk food and refined sugar.
I also found i am intolerant to many of her legal foods whilst seemingly fine with illegal foods such as rice and potatoes and oats. This week i discovered i can eat hummus with no ill effects!! Something which i had avoided for 4 years because the diet said no chickpeas...
Honestly sometimes i think my life would have been easier if i never read that book....
But there are too many positive stories for there not to be truth in the fact that - it works for some people!

I switched from SCD to IBD-AID a year ago. The diet was developed by U Mass. It's essentially the same but slightly less restrictive - it allows oats and sweet potatoes for example. After having success with SCD for almost 4 years I was curious about how adding oats and sweet potatoes to my diet would effect me, but I was so happy to learn they're fine for me! Sounds silly but honestly after being carb free for so long it was such a relief haha. Also allows cocao powder so I've been able to bake more. Makes me wonder what other foods could be tolerable for those on SCD. By cutting out an entire food group (carbs) it's hard to know what the exact problem is?
Anyway, this trial was so incredibly small I know it's hard to take seriously (only 11 people). But diet trials are hard to fund and organize, they actually gave each patient nutrition lessons and cooking classes. They claim 100% of patients had some degree of improvement, do with that info what you will. They actually don't give much (if any) scientific information about why certain things are allowed and some aren't, so I'm not posting to answer any of the above questions about why some sugars and carbs are tolerated and some not. Remains a mystery to me. All I can say is this diet works really well for me and I like the way they break their intro diet into 3 phases and offer some good recipes.

https://www.umassmed.edu/nutrition/ibd/ibdaid/

Wow! Just catching up on the posts now. So many great tips and reviews. It’s really giving us some hope. Thanks so much!!

Will create a separate post about how husband is doing on the diet. Since I cook all the food (isn’t he lucky to have a personal chef haha!), I’ll let you know how it goes this week.

So far, for anyone interested: On day 2 of intro diet, he’s miserable af because he’s a foodie at heart 💜

Being on meds and needing surgery probably happens equal to those who choose IBD diet or alternative medication regimens. On occasion the aversion or fear of medications or surgery can set one up for denial of symptoms.
Let us not forget the death of a member who died last year after a cascade of events. I'm not setting blame, but there were many pleas to him regarding mainstream meds and surgery before he spiraled beyond help.

Regarding diets.....try them, but realise that anything that causes fear-mongering should be taken lightly and without guilt.

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Define harmful...
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One thing which made me believe, in the beginning, that the diet could work for me is elaine's advice about bananas - because sometimes they made me feel worse and sometimes they were fine - She said only eat bananas with brown spots as then the starches have broken down into sugar which can be absorbed directly. I followed this advice and didn't have any problems with bananas. However since i developed from a pancolitis to a distal colitis i found that i can tolerate more underripe bananas (not totally green but without the brown spots). Because I have difficulty digesting too much insoluble fibre, I actually started to think that the diet is also about minimising foods which are irritating to an inflamed bowel wall which is why as you heal you can add in "advanced" foods like lentils and beans. Otherwise how come these foods would be not feeding the bad bacteria later on but they would be in the beginning?
Although from an scd standpoint one could argue that over time you build up a microbiome of "good" bacteria and digestive enzymes which are able to break down the complex carbohydrates.
Another thing with the good bacteria/bad bacteria argument is that some of the latest fecal transplants removed the bacteria so only the viruses were being transplanted - and people still got better - suggesting that the virome is also involved and thinking in terms of good/bad bacteria is too much of an oversimplification.

The problem is that pharmaceutical companies do not want invest money in randomized controlled trial of diets. It is not profitable business for them. So we have to relay on other sources.

Elaine was a microbiologist and was pretty scientific in her approach, only her working theory is probably inaccurate. So it's good as a starting point for further investigation.

I have discussed diet with a few GI doctors, both said it's so incredibly complicated that the experts haven't figured it out yet but that it is an active area of research..interestingly both also said there was some small evidence that eating a lot of red meat made inflammation worse (but small amounts are ok).

curl3d said...
I don't have a huge amount of trust in SCD. It talks about reducing sugars but allows dried fruit like apricots and allows orange juice, both of which will contain very high amounts of fructose and sucrose. It fails to answer why eating something with lots of fructose would cause less bacterial growth than eating starches. Both will end up in your colon no matter if you are able to process complex carbs or not. Not all carbs are absorbed into the bloodstream when you eat them, much of it will still be bound by fibres in the food you eat and end up in your colon.

If it helps people, then I personally believe it has more to do with people eating better products (because they become more conscious of what they're eating) as opposed to the theory actually working.

The theory is that simple monosaccharide sugars can be absorbed by cells in the small intestine easily before they reach the colon because there are transporters for them in the small intestine. This is a fact. Double sugars and higher must be broken down first. Natural fruits and orange juice without sugar added in fact has very little sucrose and is composed mainly of glucose and fructose, both of which are monosaccharides.

Some food for thought: While I have no idea why some foods are “legal”, I’m not going to dispute a microbiologist and her research. I posted a brief update of this week’s entry into SCD land with DH, and for whatever reason it is working to get things in more control. There is still a long way to go yet, but following the current eating of no grains, starches, and dairy, has made leaps and bounds to the digestive system.

To one of the pp’s points, I’m in Canada and have access to lots of nutritious foods, and given the health circumstances, I don’t think (in our case) it is a matter of simply eating “better or more nutritious” foods. I truly believe the science behind it and the microbiology at play is legit.

I’ll be honest, I was a bit skeptical of the whole protocol as we’ve been clean eating since forever and even more strict when DH went into hospital last October, but this week has proven to us progress toward healing. If it only works for a little while, then at least we can say we tried. Surgery is still certainly on the table but hopeful to continue and see if there will be further results.