In past blog post, I mentioned that years ago, when I was diagnosed, I asked the gastro. at the time if I could keep drinking coffee. He was dismissive and said something to that effect that, “It doesn’t matter what you eat.” Back then and even now, the belief was, “Food doesn’t cause Colitis.” Meanwhile though, there are numerous studies, especially in the last few years, showing how diet and the health of one’s microbiome has a cause & effect relationship with digestive diseases. A new study (in mice) shows, for example, that eating fried food basically demolishes your gut and worsens UC (what a surprise…): https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/08/190823094825.htm
Other studies show how meat consumption may not be a great idea for UC: https://nutritionfacts.org/video/bowel-wars-hydrogen-sulfide-vs-butyrate/
And this year, there was an interesting study out of USC about intermittent fasting and plant based diets (it appears to rehabilitate the microbiome: https://news.usc.edu/154847/fasting-mimicking-diet-ibd-usc-stody/
Dr. Michael Mosley suggests similar in his Clever Gut book: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/clever-gut-diet/story?id=50065497
And interestingly, a number of Colitis patients have self-treated through strict dietary intervention(Kenny Honnas – What I ate to Heal): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Lo2I1gUYfg
And lastly (for this blog post), there’s a link between a high sugar diet and Colitis induction – A high-sugar diet rapidly enhances susceptibility to colitis via depletion of luminal short-chain fatty acids in mice: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-48749-2
This might be a Rosetta Stone: rapidly enhances susceptibility to colitis via depletion of luminal short-chain fatty acids
Looking back at the period of my life preceding my diagnosis. I was in grad. school and had a fairly high-stress lifestyle. For the most part, I thought I had a healthy diet but there are products I consumed back then that I would not now (for instance, Almond Milk, which contains Carrageenan, and is featured on the “avoid” list on this blog).
Something I recall eating back then (idiotically), was something called a chocolate orange. It’s a baseball sized sphere of chocolate and it breaks apart into slices that a sensible person would eat sparingly (e.g. one slice once in a while). But not me…I ate the whole thing at once. And soon after, there was blood in my stool, so to speak. Did the chocolate orange cause my colitis? Was it that plus genetic susceptibility plus other dietary and/or lifestyle factors? In my opinion the chocolate orange was, at a minimum, not a good idea and based on some of the science I posted above MAY have played a role. Also on the ingredient list of the chocolate orange is “milkfat” something contained in other candies and also linked to fueling “bad” gut bacteria. Subsequently, chocolate products have induced flares for me, in particular the ones containing “milkfat.” Obviously I never eat chocolate anymore and avoid added sugar in general (which is pro-inflammatory anyway),
With respect to short-chain fatty acids, what seems to have had really good results for me, is eating foods that cultivate scfa’s and avoiding ones that deplete them. Much info. on this blog covers this ground (what to eat / what to avoid).
So why does much medical literature still say that diet doesn’t cause Colitis or “everyone is different”, eat what you want? Yes, it’s true that we all have particular foods that we can or cannot eat and what leads to IBD is still mysterious and unknown, but it also seems to be complete b.s. to ignore the aggregation of data indicating that optimizing one’s diet can produce significant benefits. Or the numerous studies that keep pointing to benefits of fiber, SCFA’s, and a whole foods plant based diet (or Mediterranean diet). It might be a frustrating and painstaking process, figuring out what works for you over a course of months, or my case, years. But it’s worth it.
What I’ve seen online though, is probably what doctors often face when they suggest to someone with high blood pressure/ cholesterol/ type 2 diabetes, etc. that they adhere to a diet proven to reverse disease… Most people want a painless quick fix… they want to keep downing the onion rings and cheese burgers and beer (or whatever), AND be perfectly healthy or symptom free. I see comments online from some fellow IBD’ers that are similar.
So, can your dietary choices lead to colitis? I don’t know if it’s the “one thing,” but it certainly can degrade or cultivate a healthy microbiome, something that supports a good digestive health whether you have IBD or not. For me, I believe that eating the chocolate orange played a role. Then again, maybe I would’ve gotten Colitis anyway sooner or later. Who knows…
In any case, plenty of research shows that yes, a poor diet can increase your odds of getting UC, and a “good” one can minimize them (as well as yield improvements – or not – for people who already have it). Whether or not you want to accept this is up to you.
This year, always seeking to optimize my diet, I am prob. 80% plant based, at least. The rest is Mediterranean diet (fish and some yogurt) and I’ve been enjoying the longest period of remission I’ve had in ten years.
As I’ve said, I’m not a doctor. I’m someone who has had Colitis for over two decades and have basically been running experiments on myself for that time – an articulate guinea pig…
The Colitist 