Specific Carbohydrate Diet

[CarlaB]

A friend of mine who says she has been diagnosed with Crohn's disease and gluten intolerance told me that if a celiac stays on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet for a year, they will be cured.

Part of this makes sense to me. To go on a diet where the food is easily digested would be the ideal way for the intestines to heal improving absorption. I can also agree that I eat starchy carbs for comfort food, but I could perfectly well live on fruits, veggies, and proteins. I could argue that I NEEDED that gluten-free brownie I just ate.

However, to then conclude that the person could go back on the western diet that presumably started the condition to begin with makes no sense to me. It also makes no sense to me that your body would stop having the immune and autoimmune reaction to gluten, casein, and whatever else caused the trouble to begin with.

I agree with her assesment of the shortcomings of diagnosis. We've seen a lot of that around here.

What do you think?

[ravenwoodglass]

A friend of mine who says she has been diagnosed with Crohn's disease and gluten intolerance told me that if a celiac stays on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet for a year, they will be cured.

Part of this makes sense to me. To go on a diet where the food is easily digested would be the ideal way for the intestines to heal improving absorption. I can also agree that I eat starchy carbs for comfort food, but I could perfectly well live on fruits, veggies, and proteins. I could argue that I NEEDED that gluten-free brownie I just ate.

However, to then conclude that the person could go back on the western diet that presumably started the condition to begin with makes no sense to me. It also makes no sense to me that your body would stop having the immune and autoimmune reaction to gluten, casein, and whatever else caused the trouble to begin with.

I agree with her assesment of the shortcomings of diagnosis. We've seen a lot of that around here.

What do you think?

There is no cure for gluten intolerance. It is a genetic difference. The Chrons could however go into remission independantly of the gluten issue.

[CarlaB]

There is no cure for gluten intolerance. It is a genetic difference. The Chrons could however go into remission independantly of the gluten issue.

That's about what I was thinking. We can "cure" our intestines, but that doesn't mean we can damage them again by eating gluten.

[terps19]

I used to belong to a SCDiet listserve. I was never on the diet but I can tell you what I learned. For some people at the end of the diet when they are "cured" which is a year of no symptoms then you can introduce like rice and potato and maybe some bread but never the processed foods in the American diet.

I always thought the diet was too restrictive and would cause me to lose a lot of weight especially since I cant tolerate casien- that means no yogurt which is a cornerstone of the diet. I also dont do well eating a lot of nuts thus making the almond flour baked goods would be risky.

[Guest greengirl]

The author of the book, Breaking the Vicious Cycle, (Elaine Gottschall) does indeed say that after being on the SCD for a year without symptoms Celiac disease can be cured. She doesn't give the scientific explanation for this, although she was a cellular biologist and spent many years researching the diet. I kept thinking I was reading it incorrectly. If this is true (which I doubt) you'd think it would be a major breakthrough and she would have gone into much more detail about it. Her daughter did have ulcerative colitis and after being on the diet for 7 years was able to eat a normal diet for 30 years and counting, but UC is different than celiac...

I do believe the diet is helpful, if not a complete cure. I only did it for 6 weeks because I felt so weak without the carbs, but I did notice an improvement when I re-introduced gluten free foods that were not included in the diet. I think it helped jumpstart my healing.

Christine

[sleepingbean]

Well, I don't buy that without some studies and proof! BUT we did do the SCDiet and it did cure my daughter of her SYMPTOMS. The autism traits went away. It did let her gut HEAL. Her diarrhea finally stopped.

BUT if she gets any gluten, even now (2+ years later) she reacts terribly. So, as long as she doesn't eat gluten, she is cured with SCDiet, but if she eats gluten again...she is sick again.

I think that is very dangerous advice to give out to people. Some people may be sick without a true intollerance to gluten and with that sickness may come an inability to handle gluten at that time. For some, I imagine that once their guts are healed they may very well be right as rain, but I would not ever recommend a Celiac try eating gluten again after doing the SCDiet.

But, I would recommend that any Celiac who still has gut related problems or behavior or autoimmune etc to try the SCDiet becuase it can really help the body to heal when just eliminating gluten alone doesn't always do the trick.

We did SCDiet without dairy and it worked beautifully.

[shayesmom]

A friend of mine who says she has been diagnosed with Crohn's disease and gluten intolerance told me that if a celiac stays on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet for a year, they will be cured.

Part of this makes sense to me. To go on a diet where the food is easily digested would be the ideal way for the intestines to heal improving absorption. I can also agree that I eat starchy carbs for comfort food, but I could perfectly well live on fruits, veggies, and proteins. I could argue that I NEEDED that gluten-free brownie I just ate.

However, to then conclude that the person could go back on the western diet that presumably started the condition to begin with makes no sense to me. It also makes no sense to me that your body would stop having the immune and autoimmune reaction to gluten, casein, and whatever else caused the trouble to begin with.

I agree with her assesment of the shortcomings of diagnosis. We've seen a lot of that around here.

What do you think?

You know, I have been considering this for a while now. Part of it does make sense, especially in light of one of the articles posted on this site in reference to a bacterial overgrowth which may play a part in triggering Celiac Disease. The SCD diet is supposed to change the balance of gut flora....especially the prevalence of one which is being associated with Celiac and is assisting in the "triggering" response.

However, I must have misunderstood the part which spoke to the length of time needed for the diet to work. For some reason, I had 2 years on the SCD diet as the required time?

[CarlaB]

Thank you for all of your replies, it's good to know my thinking wasn't too far off from what most of you think. I, too, was thinking it would be a good cure for the symptoms, but not the disease itself. That makes sense. However, stopping the immune reaction does not make sense to me. My friend has Crohns, so it could be pretty likely that she could be "cured." I still think that if anyone went back to the way they ate before that likely caused their problems, that the problems would eventually return. But, if you started having syptoms at 30, got "cured," maybe you'd be good for another 30 years (for non-celiac diseases) ... who knows!

[Nancym]

Thank you for all of your replies, it's good to know my thinking wasn't too far off from what most of you think. I, too, was thinking it would be a good cure for the symptoms, but not the disease itself. That makes sense. However, stopping the immune reaction does not make sense to me. My friend has Crohns, so it could be pretty likely that she could be "cured." I still think that if anyone went back to the way they ate before that likely caused their problems, that the problems would eventually return. But, if you started having syptoms at 30, got "cured," maybe you'd be good for another 30 years (for non-celiac diseases) ... who knows!

I like the diet, sans the milk products. It seems like about the healthiest diet you could eat. But I'm very skeptical about the claims of curing celiac.