Huge increase in Crohn's hospital admissions

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JMC

JMC

Joined
Sep 10, 2011
Messages
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Being reported on the BBC website today. I am not sure the connection with "junk food" is helpful or accurate, but good to see this problem getting the attention it deserves.
 
I saw this on the TV this morning. There was a four fold rise in hospital admissions, which seems massive, although they didn't really give a reason for it. I was annoyed about the junk food comment, I don't think they really did us Crohn's suffers much justice.
 
Interesting article.I agree the junk food take is misleading,I was never a big junk food eater.Nice to see CD getting some attention by the media.
 
It makes it sound like we deserve it for choosing bad foods but it doesn't say that often the crappy foods are the only ones we can safely eat.
 
For me personally, I do think it's the junk along with alcohol and smoking. As a kid I used to eat sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner - all that gluten probably destroyed my gut! In my late teens I drank bottles of vodka mixed with redbull and smoked 10-15 cigarettes a day. So I do agree in some cases it may be those factors, but not always. Just as a disclaimer, I do none of those things now!

As for the antibiotics I was on a ton when I had pneumonia and then again when I had a recurring chest infection. So they could also be to blame.

I mean, once diagnosed, people with IBD or other chronic illnesses are probably some of the healthiest, clean-eating people you could meet.
 
LewisS said:
I mean, once diagnosed, people with IBD or other chronic illnesses are probably some of the healthiest, clean-eating people you could meet.
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I definitely don't think so, we have to eat low fiber often or be careful with some of the healthiest foods or cut out whole food groups. Also being on immunosuppressive meds we can't enjoy immune boosting supplements. I'd venture to say most of us are forced to an unhealthy diet without choice.
 
Really annoyed by the junk food comment, but from what Crohns and Colitis UK are saying, it was a backhanded comment from a specialist and obviously as newsreaders, they want to blow a small thing way out of proportion.
 
nogutsnoglory said:
I definitely don't think so, we have to eat low fiber often or be careful with some of the healthiest foods or cut out whole food groups. Also being on immunosuppressive meds we can't enjoy immune boosting supplements. I'd venture to say most of us are forced to an unhealthy diet without choice.
Click to expand...

Weird, maybe I've been fooled by Instagram. When you search crohn's it's a ton of people eating avocado, sauerkraut, oats and green juices with the hashtags #cleaneats #crohnie #paleo etc. and they're all posing in their gym kits showing off their scars and such. I certainly don't believe there's anything that forces people to eat unhealthily, especially before diagnosis. Not sure about with the meds though. Perhaps these individuals chose diet as a form of treatment?

There's this one girl with crohn's that's pretty 'instafamous' and she uploaded a picture of her eating McDonald's. All the 'crohnies' were giving her lectures about how fast food aggravates crohns and telling her to eat the kinda things I mentioned before.
 
Lewis, I tend to agree with you. As I've mentioned before, my husband was told Diet didn't matter and to continue to eat whatever he wanted. He was put on the low residue diet straight after diagnosis. We have since modified that, and He's went Gluten Free. I 100% believe that Diet does play a huge role. Mainly, I think its more of the processed junk or anything that isn't normal.

Like Splenda.. did you know that it was initially designed to kill ants? The ants eat it and they can't digest it and then they essentially "explode" because they stomachs can't do anything with it. Yep, learned that from our latest Doctor, which gave us the weirdest facial expression of shock when we told him, the "Diet didn't matter" story..

I believe I know exactly who you are talking about when you mention Instagram. I too had those very same thoughts. In my own observations, (from viewing photos of those on insta) is that those that follow some sort of diet protocol is in turn doing wayyyy better than those that aren't. BUT that could be purely be a bad assumption on my part. I do know first hand, that DIET is extremely powerful in my husbands case. He went for months with partial obstructions almost every two weeks like clock work, but since radically changing his diet, his symptoms have radically decreased as well. I also believe that the more holistic way isn't going to near as fast as say a biologic or steroids. Diet is a hard thing for many to do, and stick with. Its more of a lifestyle change.

I've also read that Diet hasn't improved some cases... But cutting out the over processed, bad for you junk can't be bad for anyone....We weren't meant to consume all the sugars, starches and chemicals that are in todays foods. My tip, if at all possible stay out of the center of the grocery store. The freshest stuff is usually lining the outside walls. And watch for things like carrageen,(sp), its in alot of sour creams, and those darn Ensure drinks.. its "natural" but is inflammatory in nature.

Just my two cents....
 
Just a random thought on the number of reported admissions - were these people receiving proper care before the admission - or were they waiting for testing/diagnosis/treatment through the NHS - so the disease was allowed to worsen?

Not to start a controversy - but that is what came to my mind after hearing some peoples' stories here on the forum about long wait times, etc....
 
I agree with Amanda89. I've eaten a mostly organic healthy diet most of my life, including between 5 and 10 different fruit & veg per day. My Gastroenterologist says that there's little evidence to support dietary changes when Crohn's is in the sigmoid colon (where I have it), so I continue to eat as healthy a diet as I can. There's no doubt that white rice & white bread & potatoes, fish & chicken etc can slow things down, which I need a bit of when my infliximab is running out but I make sure it's always organic.
 
I read the article and watched it on the news and the junk food thing really annoyed me. I think with any illness if you eat a lot of junk food of course it will impact your health negatively.
 
I've read this article before they changed it.. And I didn't like it very much. It's misleading at best and does nothing to show the severity of the illnesses mentioned, it also went against what crohns and colitis UK were trying to do.

One of the people who appeared on the show has written an article in response to her experience on the show, I'll post the link for you all when I get on my laptop.

The point of the charity appearing today was to try and talk about the symptoms of IBD, with a focus on the fatigue and other hidden aspects, this is mentioned once very briefly. Crohns and colitis UK has issued responses stating that they were unaware of the sort of questions that were going to be asked and they have also released a response stating that they found the junk food comment misleading and unhelpful.

A British newspaper called the telegraph has released a similar story, with the tagline stating 'junk food causes crohns disease ' which again I'll try and get a link to later.

As someone who has always had home cooked healthy meals, never smoked, always eaten as health as my crohns allows and who never eats in fast food places like McDonald's I do get frustrated by these kind of blanket statements. I have the healthiest lifestyle of everyone I know, and have done since I was a child and I still have crohns. Go figure.

Even the healthiest person should be careful how much junk food they eat, we all know it's not good to live on fast food etc, but eating it now and then which is what the majority do will not cause crohns and we are not to blame for this horrid condition. None of us asked for this rubbish.


Rant over.
 
Their misinformation is spreading like wild fire... There's been another news paper report now :( all blaming junk food
 
I am so glad others feel the same as me about this, I read the article this morning and it really upset me. I have just been onto the bbc website and complained about it. Like we all don't face enough judgement from others without adding this
 
i,ve watched it now as well and they do leap on board junk food as its an easy one to hammer as it ties into the obesity epidemic thats happening in the western world i was never and still don,t do much or any junk food i keep well away from greasy,oily and fried food,we cook from scratch at home its just the way we were brought up a varied diet with fish.fruit and veggies should be good for everyone but unfortunately this piece neglected to mention that raw fruit and veggies can murder a crohnies insides for days!but at least it gets the subject out there.
 
Oh its definitely got it out there, the UK is now having a huge debate about this, all sorts of crohn's groups are getting involved and lots of us are using social media to spread the truth.
 
I heard it this morning on BBC Breakfast and was disgusted. I sent in a complaint, as have a lot of other angry people.
 
It is such a shame that this good opportunity for some awareness has been high-jacked by one so called experts comment. I actually think the point made about antibiotics was far more interesting as I myself had my first big flair after a reaction to pills for a bladder infection and will never take them again if I get my way.
In fact one of the first things I would say to someone with Crohn's or UC is are you on daily probiotics ?

That said, I have seen vast improvements in my health since taking vitamins and juicing , so I am sure diet does have a roll to play.
And I do think that all goodness is pounded out of processed food to give it a long shelf life which leaves us all nutritionally poorer, but that would mean pretty much everyone in the world should have some form of IBD so there is much more than junk food to blame here and it is unfair for the media to jump on that one aspect. But the media really don't know how to play fair do they ?
 
Being on the other side of the world I have not heard much of this on our media. Are there any follow up articles on mainstream media refuting the 'junk food' concept?

I suppose that someone could them to court for some sort of misrepresentation?

Some people would say that at least there is some conversation about this in the media, and is raising awareness -But unless there is accurate information in the media, how are people supposed to figure out they don't have IBS, and should keep asking questions when it takes so long to get diagnosed anyway?

This sort of misinformation really annoys me!

Sorry, rant over:)
 
Makes me angry, too. I grew up after WW2 and we certainly didn't have junk food. We grew most of our vegetables and fruit and caught fish. There was no money to buy commercially prepared food. Our great treat, three times a year - once each school holidays - was a ginger beer spider!
 
I'm livid. This is all over the British press today. I've been told that one even goes as far as to say we bring it on our selves!
 
Maybe someone could start a facebook page that facebook people could all 'like' (I don't do facebook so can't sorry) Something like "Crohnies against junk food propaganda / misinformation"?

Maybe "Crohnies" would send the wrong message too!!!
 
Or maybe someone could do up a list of appropriate email addresses for the media promoting this junk food bit and we could all email complaints.
 
Ooohh - Just thought of "Crohnies against 'Junk food' Junk" ... Any other ideas for a facebook page name?
 
Oh - I had another thought -Is there a Broadcasting standards authority in the UK? - people could make formal complaints and then if it succeeded they would have to publish a retraction and would be more careful in future. Also is there are charter that the BBC etc have signed to say they will only publish accurate information? Or is it part of their policies? I think that in some countries there are agreements with the media and the govt that they will only publish accurate information that can be verified?

The "broadcasting authority" formal complaint might be worth a try.
 
I'd be willing to join the group if anyone wanted to do it


We do have ofcom and I know there have been complaints made but the issue is that the claims came from a comment made by a GI, so they did consult someone who was classed as an 'expert 'even if they weren't a very good one. I think they should at the very least be made to apologize and retract the claims. They should also be made to apologize to the NACC and the patient they interviewed.
 
It didn't work unfortunately, I think I've seen it though and that professor was much better than the one they had yesterday
 
Chica said:
I agree with Amanda89. I've eaten a mostly organic healthy diet most of my life, including between 5 and 10 different fruit & veg per day. My Gastroenterologist says that there's little evidence to support dietary changes when Crohn's is in the sigmoid colon (where I have it), so I continue to eat as healthy a diet as I can. There's no doubt that white rice & white bread & potatoes, fish & chicken etc can slow things down, which I need a bit of when my infliximab is running out but I make sure it's always organic.
Click to expand...

white bread and white bread have virtually zero fiber content. fiber supports the good bacteria in the intestine so it can protect the development of IBD, but consuming fiber after one has IBD can lead to mixed results as now there so much bad bacteria that it too can ferment that fiber to create bad stuff/toxins and the good bacteria never gain access to this fiber. After one develops IBD the bad bacteria now dominate.
 
There,s a really good 2 page article in the Scottish Sunday Mail about crohns,it's got a really good interview with a young girl who is having a tough time,with no mention of junk food
 
Axelfl3333 said:
There,s a really good 2 page article in the Scottish Sunday Mail about crohns,it's got a really good interview with a young girl who is having a tough time,with no mention of junk food
Click to expand...

She's the one I mentioned from instagram! She's been posting about it all day. Really feel for the girl, her crohn's is really aggresive. Think in the article she says something like 'comparing crohn's to IBS is like comparing cancer to the common cold' - which I thought was a bit of an out there claim, but true I suppose.

Found the article http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/real-life/brave-teen-reveals-illness-inspired-3742307
 
Reading through it now and I think it's certainly the type of article that people in this thread were hoping for. Very to the point and is from a girl that truly suffers from the condition and treatment hasn't worked for her.
 

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