Alternatives, aren't they worth a try?

     I believe anything, within reason, is worth a try.  This disease is so unpredictable and everyone is different.  What works for one does not work for another.  Until they find the cause of this disease I don't think there will be a cure.

It depends. Some alternative therapies have good track records. Others are complete bull. I find it frustrating, though, when people seem to think that western medicine is inherently bad and that 'natural' is the only way to go, or think that 'natural' therapies don't have risks or side effects. Or that only western medicine is trying to rip you off.

'Alternative' remedies that show promise include many things that alter gut ecology like probiotics and fecal transplant. However, it is difficult to find someone skilled in doing fecal transplants, and like any other procedure, wouldn't you want someone well trained? Helminths are also somewhat promising, but a study I read recently leaves some doubt in my mind of whether they would be better at preventing the disease as opposed to treating it as they seem to prime antigen presenting cells in the gut to an immunosuppressive phenotype.

Things that don't seem as well supported but probably would not hurt include fish oil, vitamins A and D, and turmeric.

I have not seen any studies where the mechanism of LDN or efficacy in UC patients was evaluated. Everything I've seen has been in CD patients.

Also regarding acupuncture: I saw something recently about it mostly being placebo effect. That is, you can have two groups of people where one is recieving proper acupuncture and the other is just being stuck, and you seen the same effect in both groups. Very iffy. If anything it's just relaxing and you'd get the same effect from yoga or meditating.

Hmm. Cancer really isn't my field, but I checked the site and there are no links to journal articles and that worries me. I did a quick pubmed search and there's a lot of stuff out there, but its not definitive. The gist I got was "This might be involved, but we aren't sure yet" or "This could help, but our sample was too small to be definitive". A lot of the papers involved mutant receptors for vitamin D, in which case the cancers cells wouldn't react normally to it even if levels were increased. I don't think I can say definitively from the research that's out there right now.

However, vitamin D is absolutely required for any cancer patient who has had chemotherapeutics or anyone who has taken corticosteroids, to prevent osteoperosis. But too much can be toxic.

I've seen similar issues with vitamin A and colitis. It's important to normal function, but I haven't seen hard evidence that it works as a treatment. And then you have this:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21651349

Biological systems are tangly, tangly webs...