Crohn's Disease Diet as Natural Treatment
Crohn's disease and its siblings, severe colitis and inflammatory bowel disease, occur almost entirely in areas of the globe were the diet is rich in meat and dairy foods. Conversely, it is rarely seen in locations where people still eat plant-based, mostly vegetarian meals. Severe allergic reactions to meat and dairy products and some other allergens such as wheat gluten and citrus have long been suspected as being the perpetrator of these diseases.
On occasion we see these illnesses clustered in families but this is rarely genetic and has more to do with our learning food preferences from our parents.
The treatment for long-lasting substantial improvement is for the contents of the bowel to be changed continuously. Simply adding more fiber to our diet has been shown to lower the number of attacks and to improve symptoms in many sufferers. A plant based diet, which is by nature high in fiber, is very effective at removing and relieving the distress of Crohn's disease.
The next step in formulating an effective therapy would be to avoid foods that are most often implicated in causing allergies. These would be dairy products, citrus fruits, eggs, wheat, chocolate and all manner of fats and oils. If this does not provide satisfactory results then one must undertake an elimination diet to remove the offending foods.
A landmark clinical study was done with persons suffering from Crohn's disease for many years with severe diarrhea and with as many as 20 stools or more each day. The participants were switched from a diet high in fat to a low-fat diet. This provided relief from the numerous watery stools in the space of 2 to 3 days. Most participants continued to have solid bowel movements as long as they kept the vegetable and animal fats out of their food.
A person who has a healthy small intestine that is functioning normally reabsorbs bile from the liver and the last section of the small intestine, known as the ileum. Persons who have Crohn's disease often have an ileum that is damaged and therefore not able to reabsorb the bile. Bile continues to move along the ileum to the large intestine, where it creates irritation, inflammation and a discharge of water and mucus. In these cases, the immediate benefit from switching the diet is the decrease in the flow of bile acids coming from the liver. The decrease of bile acid flow is the results of lowering the amount of fat in the foods that are eaten. As an added benefit, the fibrous content of a plant based diet will neutralize and bind many of the bile acids as well as soak up much of the water contained in the stool.
Equally dramatic are the benefits for persons suffering from ulcerated colitis. Approaching this disease with a change in diet has proven to be successful. A large number of patients experienced great improvement, and many were outright cured of this debilitating disease by doing nothing more than simply taking milk and dairy products out of their diet. Other researchers have addressed this problem from the wider scope of removing many sources of commonly known food allergens, and have demonstrated tremendous success in treating their patients and without side effects.
Another important reason to switch the diet of a person suffering from Crohn's disease is that the high in fat, high cholesterol, low in fiber standard American diet elevates the risk of developing cancer of the colon. Persons with Crohn's disease, severe colitis and inflammatory bowel disease have a greater risk for colon cancer than average Americans who are fortunate enough to have a well-functioning intestinal tract.
For a person with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, who must suffer from diarrhea and severe pain each day, the opportunity to choose a simple diet is not difficult to take. This is especially true when the penalty for stepping out of the box by indulging in a temptation becomes so immediately clear.
Persons who are quite ill should pursue a simple whole-foods, plant-based low-fat diet possibly aided with some pharmaceutical drugs until the bowel settles down. As quickly as the patient can eat normal foods comfortably, he should begin a starch based diet without wheat or citrus in the beginning. Later, these two foods can be tried while observing the reaction. In stubborn cases, one must do an elimination diet to ferret out other offending foods.
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