Changing The Diet Can Cure Crohn’s Disease

The pharmaceutical industries are hiding studies that you should know about!

October 5, 1999 – According to a clinical study of 20 people with Crohn’s disease, changes in diet can significantly reduce the medication needed to control the disease and even induce complete remission.

Crohn’s disease is a complex form of inflammation of the intestinal wall for which there is currently no single treatment. Conventional medical treatment consists of the use of steroids and immunosuppressive agents, some of which cause significant side reactions. It is believed to involve hypersensitivity of the immune response of colon cells to normal compounds of the intestinal flora. It is known that diet influences the nature of intestinal flora and several studies have shown that specific foods can trigger symptoms in people with Crohn’s disease.

Nutritional deficiencies are known to be common in people with this condition: deficiencies of protein, zinc, selenium, and folic acid have been identified that can all alter the immune response. It is also known that eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) containing fish oil helps to maintain the remission of Crohn’s disease and that glutamine and aloe-derived multi polysaccharides help to cure it.

In this study, dietary modifications were introduced gradually. The first step was to completely eliminate the grains and to have a diet low in disaccharides (sucrose, lactose, maltose) for 30 days. If the symptoms decreased by 50% or more, this diet was maintained but supplemented with fish oil giving 875 mg per day of EPA and a multivitamin giving 400 mg of vitamin E, 20 mg of zinc, 200 micrograms of selenium and 800 micrograms of folic acid.

If the decrease in symptoms was less than 50%, the diet was changed on an individual basis by eliminating all dairy products, reducing the amount of yeast and monosaccharides, avoiding all nuts and nut meal, and adding gluten-free starchy foods like rice and potatoes. One month later, supplementation of 875 mg per day of EPA with fish oil was added. If symptoms persisted after 3 months, 4 g per day of aloe-derived mucopolysaccharides and 3 g of glutamine were added per day. Antimicrobial drugs were used as needed in case of persistent microbial infection. All patients were followed for periods ranging from 6 months to 8 years (depending on the start date of treatment).

The results of these dietary changes resulted in a decrease in symptoms in all patients and six of them went into complete remission for periods ranging from 5 to 80 months (6 and a half years) and stopped taking any drugs. One of the patients showed complete remission after just two months and has been maintaining it for more than 3 years.

For the other 14 patients, the decrease in symptoms ranged from 90% to 40%. Their average drug consumption decreased from 17 to 5 mg per day for prednisone, from 100 to 30 mg per day for azathioprine and 33% for 5-aminosalicylate preparations (5-ASA). The mean intestinal permeability index decreased from 0.275 to 0.074.

Eleven of the patients responded to the initial specific diet of carbohydrates and 9 had to add one or more of the other dietary modifications.

According to the author of the study, L. Galland, this research shows the possibility of applying current knowledge regarding the influence of dietary and nutritional factors in the integrated medical treatment of Crohn’s disease. However, further studies are needed to determine whether individualized nutritional therapy should be considered as the first-line treatment for Crohn’s disease in adults.