Specific Diet For Carbohydrates

If you have Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, you may have wondered if there's any way to control your condition through your diet, even though your physician may have told you you can't control inflammatory bowel disease through what you eat. If you're serious about wanting to try a dietary approach, you may want to consider trying the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, or SCD.

Significance

Inflammatory bowel disease, in which your intestines swell, can cause symptoms such as abdominal pain, diarrhea, unexplained weight loss, rectal bleeding, joint pain, skin problems and fever, according to the website WomensHealth. The SCD, developed to treat inflammatory bowel disease, aims to curb symptoms by restricting the types of carbs you eat, according to "Breaking the Vicious Cycle: Intestinal Health Through Diet" by Elaine Gottschall, a biochemist and cellular biologist who studied intestinal health and diet for five decades.

Features

According to the theory in "Breaking the Vicious Cycle," specific types of carbohydrates -- specifically, complex carbs such as grains and most sugars -- aggravate inflammatory bowel disease. Cutting these carb types out of your diet can help you reverse these bowel conditions and reduce or eliminate symptoms, the book claims.

Types

If you choose to follow the SCD, you'll need to eliminate all grains, potatoes, all forms of sugar except honey, and several types of beans, according to the book. You'll also need to follow a list of banned and allowed foods and beverages. For example, beer is banned on the diet, while bourbon is OK when consumed in moderation.

Potential

The SCD may work in some cases of inflammatory bowel disease because patients with severe intestinal damage have lost the ability to digest certain types of carbs, according to Baylor College of Medicine. If you follow the diet strictly, you may see your symptoms lessen within one month, and you may be able to reintroduce some forbidden foods in a year.

Considerations

Although Gottschall backed her conclusions with voluminous research in her book, mainstream medicine has not endorsed her findings. Rush University Medical Center says many inflammatory bowel disease patients restrict their diets because foods cause them pain, but that no current evidence shows that certain foods cause the disease while others cure it. However, the SCD has an enthusiastic group of followers on the Internet, who believe it has helped them curb inflammatory bowel disease and other digestive ailments.