Special Diet May Be Boon for Kid’s With Crohn’s Colitis

Children with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis may be able to achieve relief without medications by eating a special diet, a small study suggests.

The diet includes non-processed foods, such as fruits, vegetables, meats and nuts. Over 12 weeks, the diet appeared to ease all signs of these inflammatory bowel diseases in eight of the 10 affected children, researchers report.

“The study shows that without other intervention, other changes, we can improve individuals’ clinical as well as laboratory markers,” said study author Dr. David Suskind. He’s a professor of pediatrics and director of clinical gastroenterology at Seattle Children’s Hospital.

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) affects about 1.6 million Americans, according to the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America. Both Crohn’s and colitis are believed to be autoimmune illnesses. The two conditions share symptoms such as abdominal cramps, diarrhea, rectal bleeding and/or constipation.

Standard treatments for Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis may include steroids and other immune-suppressing drugs. Sometimes surgery is needed to remove damaged portions of the intestine.

The children in the study were between 10 and 17 years old. The diet removes grains, most dairy products, and processed foods and sugars, except for honey.

“One of the likely reasons why dietary therapy works is it shifts the microbiome from being pro-inflammatory to non-inflammatory,” Suskind said. “Another potential [reason] is there are a lot of additives in the foods we eat that can have an effect of the lining of the intestines. This diet takes out things deleterious to the mucus lining in the intestinal tract,” he said.

Wisdom Wednesday: The Eight Most Popular Diets Today

As of October 15, 2015, Medical News Today listed the following diets based on three criteria: how many articles there are around about these diets/lifestyles, how popular they seem to be generally, and how often they receive feedback on them.

• The Atkins Diet
• The Zone Diet
• The Vegetarian Diet
• The Vegan Diet
• Weight Watchers
• The Mediterranean Diet
• The Raw Food Diet
• The South Beach Diet

The diet that is obviously missing from this list is the Paleo Diet. Based on feedback I receive from my patients; Paleo is by far the most popular at this time. So in keeping with the title, I will combine the Vegetarian and Vegan diets and add Paleo to the list.

Atkins Diet or Atkins Nutritional Approach, focuses on controlling the levels of insulin in our bodies through diet. If we consume large amounts of refined carbohydrates our insulin levels rise rapidly, and then fall rapidly. Rising insulin levels will trigger our bodies to store as much of the energy we eat as possible – it will also make it less likely that our bodies use stored fat as a source of energy. Most people on the Atkins Diet will consume a higher proportion of proteins than they normally do.

The Zone diet aims for a nutritional balance of 40% carbohydrates, 30% fats, and 30% protein each time we eat. The focus is also on controlling insulin levels, which result in more successful weight loss and body weight control. The Zone diet encourages the consumption of good quality carbohydrates – unrefined carbohydrates, and fats, such as olive oil, avocado, and nuts.

Diabetes Rise in the US is 'Alarming,' Says CDC

A new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that the number of Americans with diabetes continues to rise, with over 12 percent of the adult population estimated to have the disease, and more than a third of those age 20 and over in the US now thought to have prediabetes.

In 2010, there were 26 million people in the US with diabetes – the new CDC report shows that this has gone up to 29.1 million. Moreover, 25% of people – 1 in 4 – do not realize they have the disease, which increases the risk of serious complications including heart disease, stroke, blindness, kidney failure, amputation of toes, feet or legs, and early death. (Junk Food Aricimboldo by Andy Council)

The CDC figures show that in 2012 alone, 1.7 million Americans age 20 and over were newly diagnosed with diabetes and 208,000 people under the age of 20 have either type 1 or type 2 diabetes.

The report says 86 million adult American have prediabetes, where blood sugar is higher than normal but not high enough to be classified as type 2 diabetes.

“Diabetes is costly in both human and economic terms,” says Dr. Ann Allbright, director of the federal agency’s Division of Diabetes Translation, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. She describes the new figures as “alarming”. The estimated total cost in medical bills and lost work and wages due to diabetes and related complications is $245 billion dollars for 2013, up from $174 billion in 2010.

If these numbers continue to rise, then 1 in 5 Americans will have diabetes by 2025, and 1 in 3 by 2050, she warns, adding that: “We simply can’t sustain this trajectory – the implications are far too great – for our families, our healthcare system, our workforce, our nation.”

She says we already know that the most effective way to prevent type 2 diabetes is to adopt a healthier lifestyle, and it also improves health in those already with the disease.

“The sooner people find out they have prediabetes and take action, the better their chances of preventing type 2 diabetes,” she adds, and suggests that CDC’s National Diabetes Prevention Program is a good example of how to help people change their lifestyle for the benefit of their health.

MY TAKE:
I have written about this issue frequently and will continue to harp on this message. I believe these figures are too conservative. I think we are already at 1 in 5 and will reach 1 in 2 by 2050.

We just eat too much. The only diet that has been proven to extend life is one that reduces caloric intake. We also eat the wrong stuff. The refined carbohydrates have to go. I don’t care whether you adopt the Paleo Diet, the Mediterranean Diet, the Paleo-Mediterranean Diet, or just cut out the junk.

The formula is really quite simple – eat 3 servings of protein, 5 vegetables and 2 fruits every day. If you eat a big salad, that’s 2 vegetable servings. So a salad at lunch, another at dinner, then just one more vegetable serving with dinner and you’ve met your goal for vegetables. Have a serving of protein for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Eat a banana, an apple, or some other fruit as a snack in the mid-morning and mid-afternoon. Now you’ve met your macronutrient needs for the day and maintained a nice level blood glucose, avoiding any serious demands on the pancreas. (Photo by tmcpics)

THE BOTTOM LINE:
These is a preventable and even reversible disease. Begin today. Ask your doctor to order a glycohemoglobin A1c to measure your average blood glucose level for the past two months. The normal range is below 5.7%. If you are 5.7% or higher, you are in trouble. If you are above 6.0%, you are a diabetic.

Source - Medical News Today -Thursday, June 12, 2014

Wisdom Wednesday: Probiotics Revisited

I frequently mention probiotics in my blogs. You can read my first blog of 2014 discussing the topic by Clicking Here. If you haven’t read that one, please take a few minutes to read it and last week’s Wisdom Wednesday on GALT.

Organisms in the gut can be friendly (probiotic), comensal (neutral), or pathogenic (bad). This well accepted classification has been challenged by recent research. At issue is the fact that what is probiotic for you might be pathogenic for me. Let’s look at each group individually:
The pathogenic bacteria that cause Montezuma’s revenge (traveler’s diarrhea) when you visit Mexico or the Bahamas do not harm the local population. For them, the organisms are comensal or even probiotic. They are indigenous to the local population over many generations and cause no harm. You and your family have similar organisms based on where you live and what you eat.

Comensal bacteria are neither good nor bad. They remind me of teenagers. If they are around other good kids, then they behave. But if they hang with troublemakers, they will get into trouble themselves. Candida often falls into this category. A little bit of Candida in the gut is comensal and maybe even acts as a probiotic in some people. However, overgrowth creates a pathological state. I often tell patients that Candida is an opportunistic infection. If you create the wrong environment in the gut, it will quickly multiply and create symptoms.

Probiotics are the least well understood category. Lactobacillus acidophilus is thought to be healthy for most of us, but not all. Lactobacillus bulgaris is also a good guy most of the time. However, your gut flora is unique to you. There is no probiotic product that is healthy for everyone. In fact, even dead probiotics create an immune response as I noted in my blog on GALT.

If you were born by vaginal delivery, then you were inoculated by your mother with Lactobacillus bulgaris. As an infant your gut bacteria grow and thrive first on breast milk, then becoming more diverse as different foods are slowly added to the diet.

In theory, you should never need a probiotic; your body has nurtured a unique blend of probiotics perfectly suited to you and your environment. However, antibiotics, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy distort and destroy the healthy gut environment. Today, there are antibiotics in drinking water so that even if you have never willingly taken an antibiotic, they may be entering you system on a regular basis.

Fermented foods contain active bacterial cultures. While there is potential benefit from probiotics contained in these foods, there is also potential harm. The Paleo Diet restricts the use of fermented foods while the Mediterranean Diet includes some cultured dairy products.

Currently, laboratories around the world are working to identify all the organisms in the gut through DNA analysis. Every month a few more organisms are isolated, cultured, and identified. Slightly more than 100 bacteria can now be identified through DNA analysis of a simple stool specimen. However, there are thousands of unidentified organisms that are common place in digestive tracts around the world.

Eventually, it will be a simple process to analyze a stool specimen to see what you have and what you need. Currently, when a stool analysis is complete, it will list the probiotics, comensal, and pathological organisms found. Generally no more than 10 organisms are isolated and most of them will be labeled as comensal. However, if the secretory IGA is either high or low, then the immune system has been compromised and those comensal bacteria are probably an issue and need to be treated.

THE BOTTOM LINE:
Try to avoid antibiotic use. Do not drink tap water or even filtered water. I recommend distilled water. A small home distiller will make up to 5 gallons per day. They cost just over $100 and generally last 3-4 years. If you have to take an antibiotic, follow it up with a simple probiotic like Lactobacillus acidophilus. Run through a bottle, one capsule after each meal, and then stop. Do not take a probiotic daily. If you have a chronic problem with dysbiosis, then a complete digestive stool analysis may help. Just remember, the test has limitations.