Comment by covercash | Hacker News Reader

Comment by covercash | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Please stop suggesting this in such a definitive way. You’re not a doctor, more importantly you’re not a GI doctor, and most importantly you’re not their GI doctor.

There is currently zero credible research that shows a carnivore/keto diet will reduce inflammation in patients with IBD. The Mediterranean diet has some research showing potential improvement in patients, so if anything, suggest they talk to their doctor about that one. But don’t position it as a cure. There is currently no cure for IBD.

This is an extremely complicated disease and recommending that people try “cures” you heard about on podcasts is not helpful and potentially dangerous. It’s the same line of thinking that lead to people eating horse paste to cure their COVID.

The best thing someone with IBD can do is to find a good GI specialist that they trust and feel comfortable discussing potential medications and lifestyle adjustments with. Then when someone online recommends ”cures” like carnivore diet, they can take it to their doctor and discuss whether or not it might be worth trying given their specific medical circumstances.

Source: I built r/CrohnsDisease to 50k users

If I was desperate and suffering from something as serious as IBD, I would be happy for people to casually suggest trying something that has shown to work for others anecdotally. Especially given the context of this very article, which shows we don't entirely understand it .

We don’t entirely understand it which is precisely why it’s important to have a specialist you can discuss this type of thing with. That specialist has access to your full medical history as well as the ability to run tests against any things you may decide to try. Legitimate medical and scientific breakthroughs don’t get leaked in conspiracy theory forums or on podcasts. Blindly trying something a Joe Rogan guest swears is a natural cure that Big Pharma is suppressing is a bad idea. It’s the kind of decision making that can cause something manageable to become significantly worse… look at Steve Jobs.

Trust your doctors, believe the science.

> Trust your doctors, believe the science.

Don’t really disagree with the rest of your post but as a sufferer I’ve dealt with dozens of doctors now that casually dismiss your very real symptoms or say stuff like “it’s just stress” rather than drilling down to the core of the problem. People become desperate and will try anything in this environment, so it isn’t really unwelcome to a sufferer to hear tips like this other than when people say dumb stuff like “have you tried identifying a trigger?”

No, I haven’t ever thought of that, I just shovel whatever crap down my gullet and dump liters of blood out my ass without a second thought. of course I’ve tried identifying triggers and if I already knew the trigger I wouldn’t be suffering, would I?

Have you seen some of the nutrition "drinks" and replacement shakes that MANY (including the NHS) recommend for IBD sufferers? It's utter insanity.

So you built an entire Reddit forum where many people presumably suggest their treatments, "cures" and other remedies for handling crohns/UC, but here you are strongly and rather self-righteously criticizing someone who casually did the exact same thing? It was just a suggestion, not an insistence or a promise of a cure-all. Nor were they selling anything for that matter..

Yes, various alternative and experimental treatments were discussed with a strong emphasis that anyone considering them should first discuss them with their medical team. And people who posted with definitive language about cures were either downvoted into oblivion and chastised in the comments or permabanned if it was clear from their post history that they were commenting with an agenda. The person I replied to on here would have had their ass handed to them in the comments of the subreddit and then probably would have been banned since they’re clearly only spouting their talking points and not interested in creating a discussion around the topic.

My advice to you would be to get off your high horse and maybe learn something for once. You are also not their doctor, so I don't understand why you think you should contribute to this discussion.

If you want evidence that the carnivore diet (I don't promote the keto diet) will reduce inflammation in patients with IBD then I can point you to a dozen stories of people who have cured their IBD through a carnivore diet. But you are just going to dismiss the evidence as anecdotal (nevermind that the anecdotes are endlessly accumulating) and not credible because you already have your mind made up.

If I were you I would actually try a carnivore diet for 90 days before making any more pronouncements, because I can assure you that YOU ABSOLUTELY DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT.

The fact that people have been so brainwashed into thinking that eating red meat is by definition a bad thing is a severe problem in our society and it is people like you who are contributing to our epidemic of chronic disease.

I honestly find it hard to believe that you would post that comment with such confidence. Who do you think you are?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com