World IBD Awareness Day

Evidently today is World Inflammatory Bowel Disease Awareness Day.

Since being diagnosed (not even a month ago) with Ulcerative Colitis, I have reduced my symptoms by at least 60% with supplements, and diet & lifestyle interventions.

I'm only one person, obviously. But the people that I've been meeting who have had multiple surgeries & have not ever experienced remission have taken or are taking thousands of dollars worth of prescription drugs every month, and seem to be uneducated about how our food & lifestyle actually impacts our gut health.

It doesn't seem to be a very hard trade off to be on a special diet in order to not be RUNNING to the bathroom 20 times a day, constantly exhausted, malnourished, anemic and dependent on caffeine which makes my symptoms worse.  I’m sure I will learn more factors about what causes flare-ups, but in the meantime what I’m doing is working. Maybe I’m completely naïve but I’ll cross that bridge if I come to it.

I know everyone probably thinks it's really easy for me to eat healthy, or that I have some inherent discipline that others don't. It's not any easier for me than it is for anyone else, I promise. I literally cried the other day because I wanted a latte.

I'm planning a "cheat" with dark chocolate on my birthday and literally have to plan it out to make sure I'll be near a bathroom for the following hours. I may decide it's not worth it.  I have developed strategies for making sure I feel full enough that I’m not craving food that will hurt me. I am also really clear which foods cause addictive tendencies, for me, and life is much easier when I don’t eat those foods.

I've also learned that ALL Autoimmune Disease starts with increased intestinal permeability, which can manifest as dozens of other symptoms besides digestive distress.

I'm so grateful for my education, for the resources available now vs when I first started studying nutrition, for my relentless insistence on questioning EVERYTHING, and my relationship with my body that has allowed me to heal as much as I have. 

I also have to thank my amazing partner for endless trips to the store, cooking for me when I was too exhausted to get up off the couch and for his maturity & support in dealing with my shame and guilt and general freaked-out-ness.

The more I learn the more I can't wait to feel better & start helping others to optimize their digestion. It really is true "you are what you absorb".

Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity & Common Sense

There have been several people posting articles like this one lately: http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/05/gluten_sensitivity_may_not_exist.html

I was asked my opinion earlier today, and found I had a really strong one.

What Dr. Gibson tested in the second test was people on a low-FODMAPs diet. FODMAPs are a class of food (that include all grains) that digest into sugars that feed bacteria. If you don't have enough good bacteria in your gut, they feed the bad bacteria & can cause IBS symptoms, and probably over time lots of other issues.

Food intolerances are real (measurable by antibodies in a blood test) and wreak undeniable havoc on the sufferer.

What I am starting to study right now are the causes... Leaky gut syndrome - or "Increased Intestinal Permeability & Gut Dysbiosis" as doctors prefer to call it - is what I would say people are actually suffering from. Which makes it impossible to properly digest the large molecules like gluten, lactose, the protein in egg whites, to name a few.

If the gut wall is too permeable, and big particles like gliadin (the protein in gluten) molecules are allowed to pass through, they take up residence in your synovial fluid in your joints (think Rheumatoid Arthritis) or even your brain. A nutrient-deficient diet can even erode the myelin sheaths around your nerves (think MS).

One case study I heard about in a nutrition seminar was of a man diagnosed and treated with Parkinson's for YEARS - when what he really had was gluten intolerance & the brain tissue was what was getting attacked by the gliaden. They took out gluten and HIS SYMPTOMS DISAPPEARED, no more shaking!!!

The thing I think that is interesting is how easily we will call something a "food intolerance" and then just avoid that food, vs getting to the bottom of why we are intolerant to it in the first place. In my case, I developed an autoimmune disease (Ulcerative Colitis) after definitely suffering from leaky gut for years - and not knowing it - because I just stopped eating gluten & that helped enough of my symptoms that I stopped there.

I'm not interested in eating gluten again per se, but I am curious to see how much I can seal up my gut lining to be able to tolerate foods I can't right now. Even foods I have antibodies for. It may take months or years, but I can't imagine never eating eggs again, for instance. And I know of people who have healed their gut with the methods I'm using. So that's exciting.

So - bottom line - should people who know they feel better without gluten start eating it because of this new information? No, that would be dumb. Does it give us other places to look in actually being able to heal the gut lining? Yes.