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ulcerative colitus - anyone out there?
- Thread starter tap0621
- Start date
Not a doc and not sure if you are including supps that might help you cop, but.... I know of two products that are suppose to help alot. I researched them for a friend that has Crohn's disease Ok, don't laugh but, a GOOD quality colostrum http://colostrum.marysgarden.com/colostrum/mhg_50_capsules.htm
or Secure protein:http://www.seacure-protein.com/
or http://www.merc-buyers.com/SEACURE.htm
Hope this helps!
megadeth
or Secure protein:http://www.seacure-protein.com/
or http://www.merc-buyers.com/SEACURE.htm
Hope this helps!
megadeth
I don't take anything like that. I am on deca and test, and I eat a shit load of protein, about 500 grams a day. I am not having any more than usual problems with the colitus, I just am having a hard time putting on and especially keeping on weight. I was doing pretty well until a couple of weeks ago I had a "flare-up" and lost 12 pounds in ten days! This while eating over 4000 calories a day. It really sucks.
I was diagnosed with colitis last summer so I know what you're going through. However mine was a mild case according to the docs, though it took so long to diagnose(over 3 weeks) I lost 30 pounds in that time and most of it was muscle. I started out at 208 and when it was all said and done I walked out of the hospital, take that back.. I was wheeled out of the hospital at 178 pounds. I was in the middle of my first ever oxandrolone cycle when it happened. I thought it might be the drugs causing it so I stopped taking them, but found out later that it wasn't the drugs at all. Also I was very honest with the doctors about my drug use and they assured me it had nothing to do with it.
I am happy to say that I'm back up to my previous musculature plus more. I actually have more muscle and less bodyfat than I did a year ago when it all happened however my weight is about the same. Since mine was considered mild colitis I may not have it as bad as you, as you probably know there are varying degrees of the disease. Some have it horribly bad while others only deal with it every few years.
You didn't specify a few things so I'm curious when you are having trouble keeping on the weight are you on any drugs? Corticosteroids are catabolic by nature and you'll have a hell of a time keeping muscle throughout their use. You said you had a flare-up so I'm assuming you went on drugs in that time to control it. If so no amount of food will allow you to keep muscle from breaking down, though of course fat gain is still possible. I found this out the hard way... lost all that muscle and put on a shitload of fat while on prednisone due to the massive hunger stimulation it causes.
Here are my recommendations for continuing your bodybuilding through the disease:
1. Keep oxandrolone on hand at all times. This is the absolute best anti-catabolic drug there is hands down. It also works it's magic at low dosages. The next time you have a flare up try taking 10-20mg in the mornings. This dose is mild so it won't really put on any weight, however it will greatly reduce the chance of losing any. This is the same stuff that is prescribed to waisting patients like aids and burn victims. I haven't read anything about drug interactions between corticosteroids and oxandrolone so the next time I have to take prednisone I will attempt it.
2. Drop the protein intake. Protein is hard on the digestive system, especially at the amount you're intaking and may actually help to cause flare-ups. Studies have proven that a positive nitrogen balance is all that's needed to sustain muscle growth. One study I can point you to even proved that a group that ate twice as much protein as another group showed absolutely no more muscle gain than the first group after a 12 week exercise program. The study conclucded that 1.5g of protein per kg of bodyweight was enough to sustain a positive nitrogen balance and offered no benefit over those eating up to 2.65g per kg.
3. During flare-ups don't eat any fiber. This goes against all we are taught but in this instance it holds true. Stay away from fibrous fruits, veges and grains during flare-ups as they can make it worse and take longer to pass. Of course once it's over the fiber will help to sustain a healthy colon.
4. During a flare-up you should increase your nutrient intake. Since the colon is what sucks nutrients out of the digested food, you can imagine how unefficient it is when it's inflamed. Just be sure to get more of everything than normal to ensure your body is getting it's nutrients. I was severly malnourished during my run with colitis due to not eating enough.
Thankfully I haven't had any flareups since then and I've done some fina/ox cycles during that time and I'm currently running dbol/ox and not having any out of the ordinary problems. I tend to get a lot of gas lately but dbol has shown to give stomach discomfort to a lot of people so I don't think it's out of the ordinary.
At any rate we just have to learn to work through the disadvantage and use all the tools at our disposal. As I said I'm not sure how severe your colitis is but as long as you are prepared you should be able to get through it without losing much, if any, muscle. Also as long as you aren't having an actual flare-up then I don't see why you would have any trouble putting on weight due to the colitis since it's more of a come and go disease. When it's not active your body should be "normal". Were you a hardgainer before you were diagnosed or did you begin weight training long after knowing about your colitis?
I only ask this because I'm having no trouble putting on weight while the disease is inactive. Though I had no trouble beforehand as well so I'm theorizing your weight gain issue is independant of the colitis and is only made worse when the disease has flared-up.
I am happy to say that I'm back up to my previous musculature plus more. I actually have more muscle and less bodyfat than I did a year ago when it all happened however my weight is about the same. Since mine was considered mild colitis I may not have it as bad as you, as you probably know there are varying degrees of the disease. Some have it horribly bad while others only deal with it every few years.
You didn't specify a few things so I'm curious when you are having trouble keeping on the weight are you on any drugs? Corticosteroids are catabolic by nature and you'll have a hell of a time keeping muscle throughout their use. You said you had a flare-up so I'm assuming you went on drugs in that time to control it. If so no amount of food will allow you to keep muscle from breaking down, though of course fat gain is still possible. I found this out the hard way... lost all that muscle and put on a shitload of fat while on prednisone due to the massive hunger stimulation it causes.
Here are my recommendations for continuing your bodybuilding through the disease:
1. Keep oxandrolone on hand at all times. This is the absolute best anti-catabolic drug there is hands down. It also works it's magic at low dosages. The next time you have a flare up try taking 10-20mg in the mornings. This dose is mild so it won't really put on any weight, however it will greatly reduce the chance of losing any. This is the same stuff that is prescribed to waisting patients like aids and burn victims. I haven't read anything about drug interactions between corticosteroids and oxandrolone so the next time I have to take prednisone I will attempt it.
2. Drop the protein intake. Protein is hard on the digestive system, especially at the amount you're intaking and may actually help to cause flare-ups. Studies have proven that a positive nitrogen balance is all that's needed to sustain muscle growth. One study I can point you to even proved that a group that ate twice as much protein as another group showed absolutely no more muscle gain than the first group after a 12 week exercise program. The study conclucded that 1.5g of protein per kg of bodyweight was enough to sustain a positive nitrogen balance and offered no benefit over those eating up to 2.65g per kg.
3. During flare-ups don't eat any fiber. This goes against all we are taught but in this instance it holds true. Stay away from fibrous fruits, veges and grains during flare-ups as they can make it worse and take longer to pass. Of course once it's over the fiber will help to sustain a healthy colon.
4. During a flare-up you should increase your nutrient intake. Since the colon is what sucks nutrients out of the digested food, you can imagine how unefficient it is when it's inflamed. Just be sure to get more of everything than normal to ensure your body is getting it's nutrients. I was severly malnourished during my run with colitis due to not eating enough.
Thankfully I haven't had any flareups since then and I've done some fina/ox cycles during that time and I'm currently running dbol/ox and not having any out of the ordinary problems. I tend to get a lot of gas lately but dbol has shown to give stomach discomfort to a lot of people so I don't think it's out of the ordinary.
At any rate we just have to learn to work through the disadvantage and use all the tools at our disposal. As I said I'm not sure how severe your colitis is but as long as you are prepared you should be able to get through it without losing much, if any, muscle. Also as long as you aren't having an actual flare-up then I don't see why you would have any trouble putting on weight due to the colitis since it's more of a come and go disease. When it's not active your body should be "normal". Were you a hardgainer before you were diagnosed or did you begin weight training long after knowing about your colitis?
I only ask this because I'm having no trouble putting on weight while the disease is inactive. Though I had no trouble beforehand as well so I'm theorizing your weight gain issue is independant of the colitis and is only made worse when the disease has flared-up.
http://www.scdiet.org/7archives/lutz/lutz7.html
Taken from Dr. Wolfgang Lutz's book "Life Without Bread"
In March 1985 I published 103 Crohn's patients (Fig. 16) which I had treated up to then (*74-75), and with this information I hope to be able to convince my colleagues to first try to treat these unfortunate patients with diet instead of cortisone and scalpel. Perhaps then also a breakthrough regarding other diseases can be reached. In recent years German and English authors (*38-39) have found that Crohn's patients experience a certain improvement after relinquishment of sugar and so-called refined carbohydrates. This corresponds to today's widespread conception that only the refined carbohydrates are harmful, i.e. sugar and white flour.
I do not believe this. To the contrary, I am convinced and have seen again and again that bread and particularly whole meal bread is not tolerated well by patients with gastro-intestinal ailments. Starch turns into sugar in the bowel anyhow, perhaps somewhat slower than if one eats sugar and only dextrose, but in principle the result is the same. At least this recommendation points in the right direction: restriction of carbohydrates.
Often a gluten-free diet is tried, particularly for chronic diarrhoea and Crohn's disease, because the alcohol-soluble fraction of the grain protein causes the so-called Celiac Disease in children, which is accompanied by pulpy, flat-cake-shaped stools, and impaired development. But I have seen many times that grain protein is not the cause of this colon disease. Again and again patients were on a gluten-free diet for months or years, unsuccessfully, but responded to carbohydrate restriction despite of gluten.
Recently the consumption of margarine and other artificial fats as cause for Crohn's disease has been discussed, based on the fact that in France and in the WalIonic part of Belgium, where less artificial fat and more butter is consumed, Crohn's disease occurs less frequently (*40-41).
Indeed, the increase in Crohn's disease in the German-speaking countries in the last years correlates with an increase in margarine consumption. One speculates that the artificial fats are not broken down and absorbed properly, so that their metabolites enter the lymphatic vessels and cause the described granulomatous inflammations. This could be quite true. Artificial fats are, considering human evolution, definitely less natural than carbohydrates, but I have among my patients cases of Crohn's disease who have only eaten natural fats and never artificial fats, but I have none who has eaten no carbohydrates. Yet I can imagine that the consumption of artificial fats supports the tendency to develop the disease, when carbohydrates are consumed in large quantities.
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Ulcerative Colitis
Ulcerative colitis is located at the lower end of the continuum "chronic diarrhoea ---> Crohn's Disease". It may begin one day quite harmlessly with the appearance of blood in the stool. The physician diagnoses hemorrhoids which cannot be found with the rectoscope. Instead he sees a reddened mucosa which starts bleeding at the slightest touch or when the overlying purulent layer is removed. In mild cases this process is restricted to the rectum; the more severe the disease the further it extends upward. In contrast to Crohn's Disease the small intestine, the gallbladder, the duodenum, and the stomach are never involved. There are no infiltrates, no perforations, and no flstulas. Only the mucosa and the underlying muscle layer are affected. However, in time both are destroyed to an extent that the whole colon contracts into a short cylinder, which is completely motionless and has lost most of its function.
At least these patients still have their natural anus and not an artificial abdominal one. All this is bad enough but the patients would and actually do put up with their bloody stools, abdominal pain, and diarrhoea, if the disease would not become life-threatening by turning into the so-called toxic megacolon or by degenerating malignantly. A toxic megacolon can develop at any time as long as the ulcerative colitis is active. Only three patients of a total of 285 that I have treated up to the end of 1984 have died. One was a relatively young man who had recovered quite well under a low-carbohydrate diet and had gained 20 kg of weight. Suddenly he became acutely ill with high fever and abdominal pain. He was admitted to a clinic but was operated on too late because he had fiercely refused this operation. Another one underwent surgery without my approval; the third, a very old lady, died two months after operation of thrombo-embolism.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Surgical Therapy
Of all patients with ulcerative colitis 20 to 30% sooner or later have to be operated on if they do not eat a low-carbohydrate diet. The constant loss of blood and iron and the continuously-deteriorating general health necessitate the removal of the colon and the creation of an artificial anus (*42). Only two of my patients had to have their colon removed. Of course I cannot be certain that one or the other who was lost to follow up (who did not answer my repeated inquiries) did not have to have his colon removed after all. Certainly there is a limit even to what a low-carbohydrate diet can do, a stage of the disease so advanced that the transition to a new diet is not tolerated or effective anymore. Maybe the patients gave up after months or years of dieting, or other reasons necessitated surgical intervention.
With the surgical removal of the entire colon the disease is finally overcome. Not only the colitis is resolved because the diseased organ is gone, but with it all other symptoms of a chronic colitis which can occur in the eyes, skin, and the joints. They manifest due to an outward radiation of the immune reaction from the colon to other organs.
There is still one other possibility before the operation, and that is gold therapy. Gold is a well-known anti-rheumatic drug which was used extensively to treat joint inflammations before the newer non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and cortisone preparations became available. Gold is directly taken up by the immune-competent cells, the white blood cells and their progeny; it inhibits their activity and thereby improves immune diseases. The leukocytes are not able to attack the colon's mucosa anymore.
Gold therapy should only be applied to severe cases of ulcerative colitis because sometimes it causes side-effects like week-long fever or urticarial skin rashes. It can also alter the hormonal status. I have observed that the gonadotropin secretion decreases (see page 94), which can compromise sexuality. In women this is not so bad, sometimes even advantageous, because menstrual breast pain disappears. However, in men sexual potency often declines. Of course, in severe cases of ulcerative colitis one will have to ignore these side- effects, since usually the question is whether the colon can be preserved or not. The side effects usually disappear with time.
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Low-Carbohydrate Nutrition
I can only report positive about my ulcerative colitis patients (*43-47). Alone the number of more than 200 patients is unusual for a practitioner. It indicates that one patient recommends him to another. Many patients came to me from hospitals, where these unlucky people congregate and are told "There is no diet for ulcerative colitis or Crohn's Disease. Eat whatever you can tolerate. Take your medication and come back to us when you have a relapse. Eventually you may have to be operated anyway."
Of the first 74 patients, whom I have treated until 1979 with a low-carbohydrate diet (*46), approximately 60% were without complaints after two years, had normal laboratory values, and a normal-looking rectal mucosa (figure 17, see also color plate following page 348). The remaining 40% took longer, four, six, eight years, until the bleeding stopped, iron levels normalIzed, diarrhoea and abdominal pain subsided. I had only two patients who took longer than eight years until their disease calmed down.
These patients asked me how they had given the impression of psychological difficulties. They thought they were happily married, had no problems, sufficient income, by no means the feeling that something psychological had Influenced or even caused their disease. The following letter of a doctor is characteristic for this situation.
October 23, 1980
I want to thank SELECTA for referring me to Dr. Wolfgang Lutz in Salzburg and his methods of treating ulcerative colitis, and for his book "Leben ohne Brot (life without bread), which I became acquainted with in November 1974. At that time I had suffered from this disease for several years. I had rectal ulcers and crypt abscesses. None was able to help me. I was allergic to drugs and experienced unpleasant side effects from cortisone, swollen knee joints, edemas of the legs, nocturnal sweating, sleeplessness and Cushing's symptoms. The commonly-recommended diets did not help at all. I felt I was stuck on a dead-end road.
Now, after two-and-a-half years of low-carbohydrate diet, everything has changed. Not only the colitis has healed but also the stomach problems have disappeared. I am totally convinced now that this illness is in no respect psychosomatic but purely a nutritional problem. I only regret that most colitis patients will go on to be considered psychosomatically ill and will not be treated with the only effective therapy, that is carbohydrate restriction, just because doctors do not believe in it."
The second alternative is the removal of the entire colon and the creation of an artificial anus. Certainly there are cases where this is finally the last possibility to cure a chronic colon illness. Patients are usually capable to put up with anything their fate imposes on them, but whoever has had an artificial anus, knows what that means. As mentioned before, I have lost one patient who was operated on too late because he absolutely refused to have an artificial anus. Resides this one, however, I did not have to refer one single patient of mine to surgery and I hope this will be so in the future.
In contrast to Crohn's Disease, even after the resolution of an ulcerative colitis there can be a relapse. From year to year these relapses become less probable and less severe. Two of my patients have had a relapse after ten years, one after six, and one after four. The recurrent disease was usually mild and lasted only a few weeks.
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An Immune Disease
This is because ulcerative colitis is distinctly an immune disease (*49-57). Immune reactions are supposed to protect us from external enemies. Let us consider the hemolytic streptococci which are dangerous germs. The first encounter with them causes scarlet fever. During the progression of the disease the organism develops immunity toward the pathogen. Now the immune system, represented by white blood cells and bone marrow cells, knows the germs. The immune person will never fall ill of scarlet fever again. Most other childhood diseases proceed similarly; a child will only contract them once and then never again.
The immune system never forgets; it also does not forget if it ever has been sensitized to the body's own organs. Basically what Prof. Ludwig DemIing, a specialist of gastrointestinal diseases, said, still holds true: "Once colitis, always colitis." Demling meant this in a different context, namely that once a person has ulcerative colitis, he will never get rid of the disease again. Rut this is different under a low-carbohydrate diet. Once a person has colitis, his immune system will remain primed toward his colon, but his colon becomes more resistant and can cope better with the immune system's attacks. After a while the immune system loses interest in such attacks. Because the colon does not bleed or otherwise react to the attacks, the immune system is less stimulated and its reactions are less intense.
There is a good analogy to this: we all contract chicken-pox during childhood. Some develop a typical rash, others just have fever but everybody has had chicken-pox. With increasing age the immunity against this pathogen wears off, so that we can be infected with it again. This time the infection manifests itself in the form of shingles. Sometimes this reinfection can be very extensive; however, usually it passes without fever and is restricted to small areas of the skin.
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Lactose Intolerance
There have been claims that milk may be harmful for a patient with ulcerative colitis (*42), (*49). I have never observed anything of this kind. Certainly a patient with an undiagnosed lactose intolerance will have diarrhoea after drinking milk. In these cases the enzyme lactase, which splits the milk sugar molecules, is missing. Therefore milk sugar cannot be absorbed by the intestine and transferred to the blood. It reaches the colon in an undigested form and causes diarrhoea. But this has nothing to do with ulcerative colitis.
Another danger, that a patient with ulcerative colitis has to face, is malignant degeneration, i.e. the development of colon cancer. Usually it takes ten to fifteen years for a cancer to develop. Generally these patients have had their colitis since their youth; often cancer develops at multiple sites. Whether or not patients who have been on a low-carbohydrate diet develop cancer, I cannot say. Among my first 100 patients I had two cases of cancer. One woman simultaneously had leukemia, a malignant blood disease, and colon cancer. She was operated in 1980 and is well now, also regarding her leukemia. The second case was an older man. After he had been well for over a decade, hemorrhages recurred. We found a suspicious area in his colon but a biopsy taken at that site was negative. Eventually we operated anyway; it was cancer. The surgeon told me later that he had not found any indication of ulcerative colitis in the colon. This was after more than ten years of the diet; the disease had resolved to that extent under the diet. Postoperatively the patient started to eat everything again, just to come back to me with a relapse of his colitis. Now his surgeon also uses a low-carbohydrate diet for colitis patients in his hospital.
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Medication
The medication cannot be discontinued immediately since it takes a little while until the diet takes effect. First one should try to wean the patient from cortisone since these artificial adrenal cortex preparations generally inhibit protein synthesis. That means they do not only suppress the production of immune cells and thereby subdue the symptoms, but also interfere with the healing of the mucosa. Eventually one will be able to discontinue all medication. Should there be a relapse in the first few years, one can temporarily take up the medication again. A mild relapse does not require medication.
I have a whole file of thank-you letters from patients who had tried every possible therapy unsuccessfully and finally were left with surgery as the only option, before they came to me. Certainly there are more than 50,080 cases of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis alone in the German-speaking countries. Why are they not put on a low-carbohydrate diet? Why does not this method become established? I can only say that I have tried everything. Between 1965 and 1981 I published five scientific papers in respectable medical journals, I have written over 40 letters to editors of scientific journals, I contacted the societies for patients of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis and have not even received a reply.
I do not believe that, of all the letters the postal service handles, it has lost exactly these. There Is no limit to the arrogance of orthodox medicine toward all outsider methods, toward acupuncture, neural therapy, chiropractic, homeopathy. Caution is partially justified but none even had the courage to use these precise methods of this orthodox medicine to prove the outsiders wrong. To ignore something that comes from outside, from a physician who "only" practices and does not teach at a university, in my opinion is irresponsible. In my office I have posted a saying by Mark Twain: "A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea turns out to be right." I hope this will happen for the sake of the many ten-thousands of colon patients who today can still "eat what they can tolerate".
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Irritable Colon
This entails complaints which the patient associates with his colon, because they commonly pertain to bowel movements and are felt along the colon. The well-known Swedish physician Axel Munthe a long time ago associated this kind of colitis with a whole variety of hysterical traits and thereby turned it into a fashionable disease. The term "colitis" slowly became removed from the colon and became a disease of those social circles who were able to afford to have it.
However, the irritable colon actually exists as a mixture of all the conditions which have been discussed so far: constipation, diarrhoea, abdominal cramps, irritations, and the like. Some patients excrete with their stools large amounts of mucus. They are worried because the mucus looks like pieces of tissue and they believe they are excreting the actual mucosa.
For this condition the term colitis or colica mucosa was coined. But surely it is not an isolated disease but rather an irritation of the colon which leads to an excessive stimulation of the mucous glands and the excretion of the mucus. All these conditions are caused by an excessive intake of carbohydrates.
This can simply be concluded from the fact that they resolve quickly on a low-carbohydrate diet. Too bad, we do not live during Axe Munthe's times, although the hysterical connotation would not have convinced the upper class at that time, that this is simply a carbohydrate-associated disease. One would have clung to the hysterical symptoms and would have looked for another physiological substrate.
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Iron and Calcium
I have observed that the low iron levels in the blood of patients with colitis ulcerosa may return to normal an a low-carbohydrate diet. The frequent intestinal haemorrhages in ulcerous colitis cause large losses of iron, an important component of the red blood pigment haemoglobin. 100 mL (1/10 L) of blood contains 14 to 16 grams of haemoglobin, of which 0,34% is iron. Our approximately 5 litres of blood therefore contain about 2.8 g of iron (an additional gram is present as tissue iron in enzymes and iron depots). It is therefore not surprising that the iron levels in the blood rise when the haemorrhages associated with colitis ulcerosa are stopped.
In many cases, however, the haemorrhages do not stop at once, but the blood iron values nevertheless begin to rise. They even return to normal in patients who have never had haemorrhages and never suffered from colitis ulcerosa (*62).
What is the reason for this improvement in the blood iron on a low-carbohydrate diet? Cessation of haemorrhage is certainly not the only reason because we have seen that the diet is also effective in cases where no bleeding occurred.
If the stools are chemically analysed for blood (e.g. by means of the benzidine reaction) it turns out that on a normal diet some patients show a positive and some a negative reaction. But even the former have blood-negative stools on a meatless diet so that it can be concluded that the blood-positive reaction previously obtained was due to the meat in their diet. On a low-carbohydrate diet such patients lose their blood-positive stool, even though they now are eating meat. The process of meat digestion must have improved in some way.
Taken from Dr. Wolfgang Lutz's book "Life Without Bread"
In March 1985 I published 103 Crohn's patients (Fig. 16) which I had treated up to then (*74-75), and with this information I hope to be able to convince my colleagues to first try to treat these unfortunate patients with diet instead of cortisone and scalpel. Perhaps then also a breakthrough regarding other diseases can be reached. In recent years German and English authors (*38-39) have found that Crohn's patients experience a certain improvement after relinquishment of sugar and so-called refined carbohydrates. This corresponds to today's widespread conception that only the refined carbohydrates are harmful, i.e. sugar and white flour.
I do not believe this. To the contrary, I am convinced and have seen again and again that bread and particularly whole meal bread is not tolerated well by patients with gastro-intestinal ailments. Starch turns into sugar in the bowel anyhow, perhaps somewhat slower than if one eats sugar and only dextrose, but in principle the result is the same. At least this recommendation points in the right direction: restriction of carbohydrates.
Often a gluten-free diet is tried, particularly for chronic diarrhoea and Crohn's disease, because the alcohol-soluble fraction of the grain protein causes the so-called Celiac Disease in children, which is accompanied by pulpy, flat-cake-shaped stools, and impaired development. But I have seen many times that grain protein is not the cause of this colon disease. Again and again patients were on a gluten-free diet for months or years, unsuccessfully, but responded to carbohydrate restriction despite of gluten.
Recently the consumption of margarine and other artificial fats as cause for Crohn's disease has been discussed, based on the fact that in France and in the WalIonic part of Belgium, where less artificial fat and more butter is consumed, Crohn's disease occurs less frequently (*40-41).
Indeed, the increase in Crohn's disease in the German-speaking countries in the last years correlates with an increase in margarine consumption. One speculates that the artificial fats are not broken down and absorbed properly, so that their metabolites enter the lymphatic vessels and cause the described granulomatous inflammations. This could be quite true. Artificial fats are, considering human evolution, definitely less natural than carbohydrates, but I have among my patients cases of Crohn's disease who have only eaten natural fats and never artificial fats, but I have none who has eaten no carbohydrates. Yet I can imagine that the consumption of artificial fats supports the tendency to develop the disease, when carbohydrates are consumed in large quantities.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ulcerative Colitis
Ulcerative colitis is located at the lower end of the continuum "chronic diarrhoea ---> Crohn's Disease". It may begin one day quite harmlessly with the appearance of blood in the stool. The physician diagnoses hemorrhoids which cannot be found with the rectoscope. Instead he sees a reddened mucosa which starts bleeding at the slightest touch or when the overlying purulent layer is removed. In mild cases this process is restricted to the rectum; the more severe the disease the further it extends upward. In contrast to Crohn's Disease the small intestine, the gallbladder, the duodenum, and the stomach are never involved. There are no infiltrates, no perforations, and no flstulas. Only the mucosa and the underlying muscle layer are affected. However, in time both are destroyed to an extent that the whole colon contracts into a short cylinder, which is completely motionless and has lost most of its function.
At least these patients still have their natural anus and not an artificial abdominal one. All this is bad enough but the patients would and actually do put up with their bloody stools, abdominal pain, and diarrhoea, if the disease would not become life-threatening by turning into the so-called toxic megacolon or by degenerating malignantly. A toxic megacolon can develop at any time as long as the ulcerative colitis is active. Only three patients of a total of 285 that I have treated up to the end of 1984 have died. One was a relatively young man who had recovered quite well under a low-carbohydrate diet and had gained 20 kg of weight. Suddenly he became acutely ill with high fever and abdominal pain. He was admitted to a clinic but was operated on too late because he had fiercely refused this operation. Another one underwent surgery without my approval; the third, a very old lady, died two months after operation of thrombo-embolism.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Surgical Therapy
Of all patients with ulcerative colitis 20 to 30% sooner or later have to be operated on if they do not eat a low-carbohydrate diet. The constant loss of blood and iron and the continuously-deteriorating general health necessitate the removal of the colon and the creation of an artificial anus (*42). Only two of my patients had to have their colon removed. Of course I cannot be certain that one or the other who was lost to follow up (who did not answer my repeated inquiries) did not have to have his colon removed after all. Certainly there is a limit even to what a low-carbohydrate diet can do, a stage of the disease so advanced that the transition to a new diet is not tolerated or effective anymore. Maybe the patients gave up after months or years of dieting, or other reasons necessitated surgical intervention.
With the surgical removal of the entire colon the disease is finally overcome. Not only the colitis is resolved because the diseased organ is gone, but with it all other symptoms of a chronic colitis which can occur in the eyes, skin, and the joints. They manifest due to an outward radiation of the immune reaction from the colon to other organs.
There is still one other possibility before the operation, and that is gold therapy. Gold is a well-known anti-rheumatic drug which was used extensively to treat joint inflammations before the newer non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and cortisone preparations became available. Gold is directly taken up by the immune-competent cells, the white blood cells and their progeny; it inhibits their activity and thereby improves immune diseases. The leukocytes are not able to attack the colon's mucosa anymore.
Gold therapy should only be applied to severe cases of ulcerative colitis because sometimes it causes side-effects like week-long fever or urticarial skin rashes. It can also alter the hormonal status. I have observed that the gonadotropin secretion decreases (see page 94), which can compromise sexuality. In women this is not so bad, sometimes even advantageous, because menstrual breast pain disappears. However, in men sexual potency often declines. Of course, in severe cases of ulcerative colitis one will have to ignore these side- effects, since usually the question is whether the colon can be preserved or not. The side effects usually disappear with time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Low-Carbohydrate Nutrition
I can only report positive about my ulcerative colitis patients (*43-47). Alone the number of more than 200 patients is unusual for a practitioner. It indicates that one patient recommends him to another. Many patients came to me from hospitals, where these unlucky people congregate and are told "There is no diet for ulcerative colitis or Crohn's Disease. Eat whatever you can tolerate. Take your medication and come back to us when you have a relapse. Eventually you may have to be operated anyway."
Of the first 74 patients, whom I have treated until 1979 with a low-carbohydrate diet (*46), approximately 60% were without complaints after two years, had normal laboratory values, and a normal-looking rectal mucosa (figure 17, see also color plate following page 348). The remaining 40% took longer, four, six, eight years, until the bleeding stopped, iron levels normalIzed, diarrhoea and abdominal pain subsided. I had only two patients who took longer than eight years until their disease calmed down.
These patients asked me how they had given the impression of psychological difficulties. They thought they were happily married, had no problems, sufficient income, by no means the feeling that something psychological had Influenced or even caused their disease. The following letter of a doctor is characteristic for this situation.
October 23, 1980
I want to thank SELECTA for referring me to Dr. Wolfgang Lutz in Salzburg and his methods of treating ulcerative colitis, and for his book "Leben ohne Brot (life without bread), which I became acquainted with in November 1974. At that time I had suffered from this disease for several years. I had rectal ulcers and crypt abscesses. None was able to help me. I was allergic to drugs and experienced unpleasant side effects from cortisone, swollen knee joints, edemas of the legs, nocturnal sweating, sleeplessness and Cushing's symptoms. The commonly-recommended diets did not help at all. I felt I was stuck on a dead-end road.
Now, after two-and-a-half years of low-carbohydrate diet, everything has changed. Not only the colitis has healed but also the stomach problems have disappeared. I am totally convinced now that this illness is in no respect psychosomatic but purely a nutritional problem. I only regret that most colitis patients will go on to be considered psychosomatically ill and will not be treated with the only effective therapy, that is carbohydrate restriction, just because doctors do not believe in it."
The second alternative is the removal of the entire colon and the creation of an artificial anus. Certainly there are cases where this is finally the last possibility to cure a chronic colon illness. Patients are usually capable to put up with anything their fate imposes on them, but whoever has had an artificial anus, knows what that means. As mentioned before, I have lost one patient who was operated on too late because he absolutely refused to have an artificial anus. Resides this one, however, I did not have to refer one single patient of mine to surgery and I hope this will be so in the future.
In contrast to Crohn's Disease, even after the resolution of an ulcerative colitis there can be a relapse. From year to year these relapses become less probable and less severe. Two of my patients have had a relapse after ten years, one after six, and one after four. The recurrent disease was usually mild and lasted only a few weeks.
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An Immune Disease
This is because ulcerative colitis is distinctly an immune disease (*49-57). Immune reactions are supposed to protect us from external enemies. Let us consider the hemolytic streptococci which are dangerous germs. The first encounter with them causes scarlet fever. During the progression of the disease the organism develops immunity toward the pathogen. Now the immune system, represented by white blood cells and bone marrow cells, knows the germs. The immune person will never fall ill of scarlet fever again. Most other childhood diseases proceed similarly; a child will only contract them once and then never again.
The immune system never forgets; it also does not forget if it ever has been sensitized to the body's own organs. Basically what Prof. Ludwig DemIing, a specialist of gastrointestinal diseases, said, still holds true: "Once colitis, always colitis." Demling meant this in a different context, namely that once a person has ulcerative colitis, he will never get rid of the disease again. Rut this is different under a low-carbohydrate diet. Once a person has colitis, his immune system will remain primed toward his colon, but his colon becomes more resistant and can cope better with the immune system's attacks. After a while the immune system loses interest in such attacks. Because the colon does not bleed or otherwise react to the attacks, the immune system is less stimulated and its reactions are less intense.
There is a good analogy to this: we all contract chicken-pox during childhood. Some develop a typical rash, others just have fever but everybody has had chicken-pox. With increasing age the immunity against this pathogen wears off, so that we can be infected with it again. This time the infection manifests itself in the form of shingles. Sometimes this reinfection can be very extensive; however, usually it passes without fever and is restricted to small areas of the skin.
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Lactose Intolerance
There have been claims that milk may be harmful for a patient with ulcerative colitis (*42), (*49). I have never observed anything of this kind. Certainly a patient with an undiagnosed lactose intolerance will have diarrhoea after drinking milk. In these cases the enzyme lactase, which splits the milk sugar molecules, is missing. Therefore milk sugar cannot be absorbed by the intestine and transferred to the blood. It reaches the colon in an undigested form and causes diarrhoea. But this has nothing to do with ulcerative colitis.
Another danger, that a patient with ulcerative colitis has to face, is malignant degeneration, i.e. the development of colon cancer. Usually it takes ten to fifteen years for a cancer to develop. Generally these patients have had their colitis since their youth; often cancer develops at multiple sites. Whether or not patients who have been on a low-carbohydrate diet develop cancer, I cannot say. Among my first 100 patients I had two cases of cancer. One woman simultaneously had leukemia, a malignant blood disease, and colon cancer. She was operated in 1980 and is well now, also regarding her leukemia. The second case was an older man. After he had been well for over a decade, hemorrhages recurred. We found a suspicious area in his colon but a biopsy taken at that site was negative. Eventually we operated anyway; it was cancer. The surgeon told me later that he had not found any indication of ulcerative colitis in the colon. This was after more than ten years of the diet; the disease had resolved to that extent under the diet. Postoperatively the patient started to eat everything again, just to come back to me with a relapse of his colitis. Now his surgeon also uses a low-carbohydrate diet for colitis patients in his hospital.
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Medication
The medication cannot be discontinued immediately since it takes a little while until the diet takes effect. First one should try to wean the patient from cortisone since these artificial adrenal cortex preparations generally inhibit protein synthesis. That means they do not only suppress the production of immune cells and thereby subdue the symptoms, but also interfere with the healing of the mucosa. Eventually one will be able to discontinue all medication. Should there be a relapse in the first few years, one can temporarily take up the medication again. A mild relapse does not require medication.
I have a whole file of thank-you letters from patients who had tried every possible therapy unsuccessfully and finally were left with surgery as the only option, before they came to me. Certainly there are more than 50,080 cases of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis alone in the German-speaking countries. Why are they not put on a low-carbohydrate diet? Why does not this method become established? I can only say that I have tried everything. Between 1965 and 1981 I published five scientific papers in respectable medical journals, I have written over 40 letters to editors of scientific journals, I contacted the societies for patients of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis and have not even received a reply.
I do not believe that, of all the letters the postal service handles, it has lost exactly these. There Is no limit to the arrogance of orthodox medicine toward all outsider methods, toward acupuncture, neural therapy, chiropractic, homeopathy. Caution is partially justified but none even had the courage to use these precise methods of this orthodox medicine to prove the outsiders wrong. To ignore something that comes from outside, from a physician who "only" practices and does not teach at a university, in my opinion is irresponsible. In my office I have posted a saying by Mark Twain: "A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea turns out to be right." I hope this will happen for the sake of the many ten-thousands of colon patients who today can still "eat what they can tolerate".
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Irritable Colon
This entails complaints which the patient associates with his colon, because they commonly pertain to bowel movements and are felt along the colon. The well-known Swedish physician Axel Munthe a long time ago associated this kind of colitis with a whole variety of hysterical traits and thereby turned it into a fashionable disease. The term "colitis" slowly became removed from the colon and became a disease of those social circles who were able to afford to have it.
However, the irritable colon actually exists as a mixture of all the conditions which have been discussed so far: constipation, diarrhoea, abdominal cramps, irritations, and the like. Some patients excrete with their stools large amounts of mucus. They are worried because the mucus looks like pieces of tissue and they believe they are excreting the actual mucosa.
For this condition the term colitis or colica mucosa was coined. But surely it is not an isolated disease but rather an irritation of the colon which leads to an excessive stimulation of the mucous glands and the excretion of the mucus. All these conditions are caused by an excessive intake of carbohydrates.
This can simply be concluded from the fact that they resolve quickly on a low-carbohydrate diet. Too bad, we do not live during Axe Munthe's times, although the hysterical connotation would not have convinced the upper class at that time, that this is simply a carbohydrate-associated disease. One would have clung to the hysterical symptoms and would have looked for another physiological substrate.
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Iron and Calcium
I have observed that the low iron levels in the blood of patients with colitis ulcerosa may return to normal an a low-carbohydrate diet. The frequent intestinal haemorrhages in ulcerous colitis cause large losses of iron, an important component of the red blood pigment haemoglobin. 100 mL (1/10 L) of blood contains 14 to 16 grams of haemoglobin, of which 0,34% is iron. Our approximately 5 litres of blood therefore contain about 2.8 g of iron (an additional gram is present as tissue iron in enzymes and iron depots). It is therefore not surprising that the iron levels in the blood rise when the haemorrhages associated with colitis ulcerosa are stopped.
In many cases, however, the haemorrhages do not stop at once, but the blood iron values nevertheless begin to rise. They even return to normal in patients who have never had haemorrhages and never suffered from colitis ulcerosa (*62).
What is the reason for this improvement in the blood iron on a low-carbohydrate diet? Cessation of haemorrhage is certainly not the only reason because we have seen that the diet is also effective in cases where no bleeding occurred.
If the stools are chemically analysed for blood (e.g. by means of the benzidine reaction) it turns out that on a normal diet some patients show a positive and some a negative reaction. But even the former have blood-negative stools on a meatless diet so that it can be concluded that the blood-positive reaction previously obtained was due to the meat in their diet. On a low-carbohydrate diet such patients lose their blood-positive stool, even though they now are eating meat. The process of meat digestion must have improved in some way.
Here is a link to a book about the "Specific Carbohydrate Diet" which has supposedly worked wonders on chronic patients that weren't even getting relief from the standard corticosteroid treatments. There are claims of complete relief from symptoms without the use of any drugs by following this diet long term. Even life long relief in those that never deviate from the eating plan.
Sounds very interesting and in the future I may end up using it. Right now my case is mild and I rarely have any problems, but should it get worse in time I will resort to this method. It is not emraced by the medical community as a whole as many still think that it's not diet related. However some of the success stories are very heartening and can give one hope to try it out.
http://www.scdiet.com/
Sounds very interesting and in the future I may end up using it. Right now my case is mild and I rarely have any problems, but should it get worse in time I will resort to this method. It is not emraced by the medical community as a whole as many still think that it's not diet related. However some of the success stories are very heartening and can give one hope to try it out.
http://www.scdiet.com/
Thanks guys, that's a lot to read. My case is also considered mild, but I do have "flare-ups" about every three to four months. I am already on a low carb diet, not because of the colitus, but because I have eaten that way for years. I'll try backing off on the protein for a while to see how it works. Ox is very hard to come by in my part of the country for some reason. I am looking into it though.
My main problem is every three to four months I will get sick and lose 10 to 15 pounds, and have to start all over again. I haven't figured out yet why. It usually happens at a time when I am under a great deal of stress. I refuse to waste away so I intend to keep supplementing my diet with AS for as long as I can get them.
Keep me posted on your status and I will do the same. I don't get the opportunity to talk to anyone with this that shares my lifestyle.
My main problem is every three to four months I will get sick and lose 10 to 15 pounds, and have to start all over again. I haven't figured out yet why. It usually happens at a time when I am under a great deal of stress. I refuse to waste away so I intend to keep supplementing my diet with AS for as long as I can get them.
Keep me posted on your status and I will do the same. I don't get the opportunity to talk to anyone with this that shares my lifestyle.
Grim Divinity
New member
I was just diagnosed with Colitis about 3 weeks ago. The doctor says it is a mild case. He also says it is weird because it hasn't affected my rectum at all. He has me on Safofal(sp?). It is basically like asprin except that it doesn't thin the blood and only effects the GI tract. He says I should be able to eat as much of anything I want while I'm on it.
The problem is I still have loose stool as well as blood. It got better for about a week but seems to be irritated again. I hope I don't have to go on any of catibolic drugs they have. Man this is depressing, I don't want to lose my Colon, I'm perfectly happy with it's current location.
The problem is I still have loose stool as well as blood. It got better for about a week but seems to be irritated again. I hope I don't have to go on any of catibolic drugs they have. Man this is depressing, I don't want to lose my Colon, I'm perfectly happy with it's current location.
witkowsd
New member
I also have colitis - but find that the only thing that would flare it up is fried food, cold cuts, milk shakes which I have always stayed away from. I sometimes get a reaction from the protein shakes so I have to watch them - I find that if I mix the protein with my oatmeal its OK for some reason. I have been noticing lately that if I eat a few spoonfuls of natural peanut butter, I think the oil in it affects me - so I try to stay away from that if I'm not home. BUt I can't drink milk, I have to use Lactaid milk. I've had this for years and am always watching what I eat. 
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