• Welcome to Crohn's Forum, a support group for people with all forms of IBD. While this community is not a substitute for doctor's advice and we cannot treat or diagnose, we find being able to communicate with others who have IBD is invaluable as we navigate our struggles and celebrate our successes. We invite you to join us.

High-fiber diet keeps gut microbes from eating colon's lining, protects against infection

High fiber/low sugar diet leads to less hospitalization and less surgery in Crohn's Disease published in the British Medical Journal, 1979.

Thirty-two patients with Crohn's disease were treated with a fibre-rich, unrefined-carbohydrate diet in addition to conventional management and followed for a mean of four years and four months. Their clinical course was
compared retrospectively with that of 32 matched patients who had received no dietary instruction. Hospital admissions were significantly fewer and shorter in the diet-treated patients, who spent a total of 111 days in
hospital compared with 533 days in the non-diet-treated control group. Whereas five of the controls required intestinal operation, only one diet-treated patient needed surgery. This is in strong contrast to general
experience with this disease. Treatment with a fibre-rich, unrefined-carbohydrate diet appears to have a favourable effect on the course of
Crohn's disease and does not lead to intestinal obstruction.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1596427/pdf/brmedj00093-0016.pdf
 
It all sounds a bit unrealistic to me. So many of us with Crohns just can't tolerate fibre, so I don't understand where this research leads us.
True. I don't think its as simple as all high fiber food is good for Crohns/IBD. It depends on the the type of fiber and food, and also the patients themselves.

Wheat, oats and sometimes beans seem the bets for me, while most vegetables even cooked can give me issues.
 
Video on a study which tracked changes in GI bacteria/microbiome when giving people whole grains. WGs Increased bacterial diversity which coincided with a drop in inflammation, this is similar to how a fecal transplant aims to increase diversity in bacteria to treat inflammatory bowel disease and in turn lowering inflammation. So it seems the wider range of good bacteria in our guts means better immune system functioning, these observations being very much in line with the hygiene hypothesis.

http://nutritionfacts.org/video/gut-microbiome-strike-it-rich-with-whole-grains/
 
Top