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Getting the Most out of your Diet (SCD/Paleo)

So your gonna try a diet,
SCD? Paleo? GAPS?

I thought i'd write this to see if we can get some good loud arguments happening to help anyone who isn't getting the results that they want.

This is the work of Paul Jaminet , from the Perfect Health Diet and I strongly urge those considering diet to read the full articles.
I have just taken the summaries in the hope that others will read the full articles
Diet seems to be hugely effective for many people but a failure for others.
It should be seen as PART of regime to help recover from crohns and Paul has done a great job outlining the whole process of taking care of your own digestive health

I thought about trying to edit it and parse it down to a few essentials but too much is lost......
(it's that eternal posting problem – too short -the generalisations are huge and there's no information, too long and nobody is going to read it)

Part I: About Gut Disease
http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2010/07/ulcerative-colitis-a-devastating-gut-disease/

“These diseases probably develop through a hierarchy of causes:
-Food toxins damage the intestine and make it leaky to gut bacteria and bacterial proteins.
-Malnutrition impairs the immune response to toxins and slows the healing of intestinal injuries. This makes the intestine even more leaky and damaged.
-Damaged immunity allows bacteria to penetrate the gut mucosa and infect intestinal cells, and to enter the body and create systemic infections including intracellular infections of immune cells. The immune response to these infections creates an inflammatory environment which makes the gut even leakier. The infections also weaken the ability of the immune system to heal the gut.
-Entry of toxins and bacteria into the body leads to autoimmunity. Food toxins conjugate with human proteins and provoke antibodies against the human protein; bacterial proteins that are ‘molecular mimics’ of human proteins engender antibodies that strike both the bacterial and human proteins.
-Autoimmunity leads to further damage to the gut and to other tissues, like the thyroid, which are important for immune function and wound healing. Hypothyroidism, for instance, promotes disease progression.
-In its early stages, development of the disease may be accelerated by a long course of antibiotics or an infection that causes severe diarrhea. These kill healthful gut bacteria and facilitate their replacement by pathogens.

If we prioritize these in terms of damage caused, then ulcerative colitis is an infectious and autoimmune disease, since these two factors do the most severe damage. It is generally unclear which is doing the most damage. Food toxins and malnutrition continue to be secondary sources of damage.

On the other hand, if we prioritize chronologically in terms of the original causes, the disease is originally caused by food toxins and malnutrition and sometimes antibiotics, which cause intestinal damage and infections, followed by autoimmunity.


Part II: Healing the Gut By Eliminating Food Toxins
http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2010/0...i-healing-the-gut-by-eliminating-food-toxins/
This is just the conclusion he draws, the reasoning is in the link
Summary of Toxic Foods to Eliminate or Avoid
In short, bowel disease patients should eliminate toxic foods from their diet:
-Eliminate all grains except rice. Wheat, oats, and corn, and their products such as wheat flour, cornstarch, bread, and pasta, must be eliminated.
-Eliminate all legumes, especially soy, beans, and peanuts.
-Eliminate omega-6 rich oils, such as soybean oil, safflower oil, corn oil, peanut oil, and canola oil.
-Eliminate fructose sugars, except from fruits and berries. Drink no sugar-containing beverages.
-Minimize fiber to keep down gut bacterial populations and avoid mechanical injuries to the intestinal wall.
-Minimize other potentially toxic protein sources. In general, protein should be obtained from animal and fish meats, not eggs, dairy, or plants. -However, fats from dairy and eggs are highly desirable. “

“Filling the Gaps in the Diet
For most people, eliminating grains will leave a large gap in the diet. Foods that should be used to fill that gap include:
-Healthful plant foods are the safe starches, such as white rice, taro, sweet potatoes and yams, and fruits and berries.
-Saturated-fat rich oils and fats, like beef tallow, clarified butter, coconut oil, palm oil, cocoa butter (yes, chocolate desserts are healthy!), along with modest quantities of olive oil and lard. Make homemade salad dressings with these oils, rather than buying supermarket dressings made with soybean or canola oil.
-Further balance the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio by eating low-omega-6 meats, such as the red meats (beef and lamb) and seafood, and eating 1 lb per week salmon or sardines for fresh omega-3 fats. “



Part III: Healing Through Nutrition
http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2010/07/bowel-disease-part-iii-healing-through-nutrition/
This is just the conclusion he draws, the reasoning is in the link
Summary
"Although not a complete list of the vitamins and minerals which may be helpful to bowel disease patients, these are among the most important – and most often overlooked:
Vitamin D3 sufficient to raise serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D above 40 ng/ml.
Vitamin K2, at least 100 mcg/day.
Magnesium citrate, 200 mg/day.
Melatonin, as needed for deep restful sleep.
Selenium, 200 mcg/day.
Iodine, 1 mg/day or more, taking care to assure that auto-antibodies are absent before trying high doses.
Thyroid hormone sufficient to bring TSH below 1.0 and body temperature to 98 F.
Vitamin C, 1 g/day.
Glutathione, 500 mg/day, preferably in the reduced form, taken between meals on an empty stomach with a full glass of water (since it is destroyed by stomach acid).
N-acetylcysteine, 500 mg/day.
Iron, zinc, and copper sufficient to relieve deficiencies. "


Part IV: Restoring Healthful Gut Flora
http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2010/07/bowel-disease-part-iv-restoring-healthful-gut-flora/

“Now imagine an infected skin abscess, but with feces spread over it three times a day, or stomach acid and digestive enzymes. How quickly would you expect it to heal?”

ewwwwwwwwwww

“Commensal “probiotic” bacteria are like a mercenary army fighting on behalf of the digestive tract. By occupying the interior lining of the digestive tract, they deprive pathogens of a “home base” that is sheltered from immune attack. If commensal bacteria dominate the gut, the immune system can usually quickly defeat infections.”
“So if IBS patients are missing 25% of the thousand or so species that should populate the gut, or 250 species, and if common probiotics provide only 8 or so species and not the ones that are missing, how are the missing species to be restored?
The answer is simple but icky. Recall that half the dry weight of stool consists of bacteria. A healthy person daily provides a sample of billions of bacteria from every one of the thousand species in his gut. They are in his stool.”


Paul goes on to suggest that it is a DIY process but I strongly disagree, too many risks and how do you know you are getting 'the good shit'

Therapies that dissolve pathogenic biofilms can improve the likelihood of success of probiotic and fecal transplant therapies. Strategies include enzyme supplements, chelation therapies, and avoidance of biofilm-promoting minerals like calcium.”

Conclusion
Fecal transplants are the best probiotic. Tactics to disrupt pathogenic biofilms can assist probiotics in bringing about re-colonization of the digestive tract by commensal bacteria.
Along with a non-toxic diet (discussed in Part II) and nutritional support for the immune system and gut (discussed in Part III), these steps to improve gut flora make up a natural program for recovery from bowel disease.
 

KWalker

Moderator
Thanks a lot for posting this. Great addition to help anybody looking for more information regarding the diet.
 
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