Hacker News Reader

Comment by kennethh | Hacker News Reader

I had Ulcerative colitis for 20 years and managed to get rid of it by changing the diet. I used the carnivore diet, ie eat mostly meat, egg, fish (animal products). Cutting out processed foods, sugar (only 70% dark chocolate) and seed oils. I would recommend trying it for a couple of months and see if it helps, and if you do not notice any difference you have not lost anything. I lost 10% of my body weight without ever being hungry so that might be a nice side effect also.

View on HN

Crohn's sufferer here. I have lost track of the times people have said "I tried this diet, and then my Crohns / UC went away".. and then some time later their symptoms reappeared. My understanding (via own reading and discussion with my doctor) is that there is just as much evidence against as for a meat-based diet .... or any kind of diet.

As my specialist put it "if there was a common diet that cured people, we would know about it already". Anecdotally one never knows if their UC/Crohn's improves because of their diet or it's just part of the ups and downs of those diseases.

That said, I'm happy in general if I hear a fellow UC / Crohn's sufferer seems to have found something that works for them, especially something that is better for you than steroids and other treatments with severe side-effects.

Yeah, it's also my take that one should be careful correlating ups and downs to things eaten -- it might as well be stress or just bad luck.

That said, if I can get some placebo effect benefits from believing that reducing processed food helps, it might be worth doing -- if nothing else it reduces cancer risks :)

Well actually Dr. Borody discovered a treatment for Crohn that consists of long term abx. He says there are slow growing bacteria that causes it. https://youtu.be/crm4pKz6X2M

He is the inventor of the triple abx therapy for H.pilory so I would listen to what he says.

To be absolutely fair to readers: Please speak to your doctor before deciding on a diet to "cure" an illness, especially since fatty foods can trigger attacks for some folks. Ulcerative colitis has no actual cure, and this is one way one person has managed it a bit better. It might not be recommended for you.

(Sorry, i'm in this thread because I have MS, and there are lots of scam diets claiming to cure it. They don't - at all. They mostly just make folks feel like they have control).

Carnivore diet seems like a perfect excuse for people who don't want to eat their veggies. If you could provide any proven benefits of this diet that other diets don't provide, I'll change my mind.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com