Dr. Andreas Eenfeldt, a Swedish medical doctor specialized in family medicine and founder and CEO of Diet Doctor, believes that diet is a key component that can treat IBD. He notes that there is no harm in trying the diet, especially if people are noticing health improvements within two weeks.
Crohn’s disease successfully treated with the paleolithic ketogenic diet - Diet Doctor
By: Dr. Andreas Eenfeldt, MD
August 8 2016
Crohn’s disease is a relatively common inflammatory disease of the intestines. It’s usually a lifelong disease of unknown cause, and it’s mainly treated by drugs that suppress the immune system, like cortisone. These drugs do not treat the cause of the disease, and thus they can’t cure it.
It’s likely that the cause of the disease is something in the environment, and being a disease of the intestines it would make a lot of sense if the cause was something in our food.
I’ve heard many cases where people started a strict low-carb diet, or a Paleo diet, and vastly improved the symptoms of their Crohn’s disease or, even more commonly, the similar disease ulcerative colitis.
Another case
A new case report was just published, about a 14-year-old boy with severe Crohn’s disease. Conventional drug therapy was not very successful. Together with his parents he decided to try a paleolithic ketogenic diet that mainly consisted of “animal fat, meat, offal and eggs”
The result?
The patient was able to discontinue medication within two weeks. Currently he is on the diet for 15 months and is free of symptoms as well as side effects.
Comment
Obviously a single case report is not proof that this will work equally well for anyone else, much less for everyone. So this has to be interpreted with a lot of caution. In addition, the diet the patient went on sounds like it could be too hard to maintain for many people.
However this is another example of what I’ve heard many, many times before. People getting off the Standard American Diet (SAD) often report big improvements in diseases like Crohn’s or ulcerative colitis. And often with a less restrictive version of the paleolithic ketogenic diet.
It seems highly likely that something in our food actually causes these diseases. And if we stop eating that, the diseases can be cured.
It’s also worth mentioning that neither a ketogenic low-carb diet, nor a Paleo diet, has anything like the side effects or risks of immunosuppressive drugs. And if there is a positive effect it often seems to be noticeable within weeks. So why not try it?
