Currently viewing the category: "inflammatory bowel disease"

How High-Sugar Diets Actually Worsen the Distress of Inflammatory Bowel Disease

By On · Add Comment · In Body, food, food sensitivities, health, inflammatory bowel disease

Sugar induced stomach painI have told you all about diet and how I believe food sensitivities are responsible for the widespread prevalence of gastrointestinal (GI) disorders in the western world today. I have explained that everything from hiccups to gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) to irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is the body’s response (either early or late) to physiological insult from food which acts as a poison to that body. A recent study outlines how, at least, one GI condition progresses along this path.

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh found that a high-sugar diet worsened inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) symptoms in a mouse model. Mice were fed either a standard or high-sugar diet and then treated with a chemical to mimic IBD colon damage after they were fed one of the two diets. All mice fed a high-sugar diet died within nine days of the 14-day experiment. All the mice fed a standard diet survived for all 14 days.

Digestive systemIBD is a chronic condition that affects the digestive system. It’s a term used to describe a group of disorders characterized by chronic inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract. The two main types of IBD are Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Current medical science is uncertain of the exact cause of IBD, but believes it to be the result of an abnormal immune response in genetically susceptible individuals, triggered by environmental factors. Sound familiar? I told you in this article that when medical science does not know all the details around a pathology, the standard go-to is “genetic predisposition.” All this means is “we don’t know,” and since everything biological is foundationally genetic anyway, that explanation means very little.

But according to what modern medicine does know: In IBD, the immune system mistakenly attacks the lining of the digestive tract, leading to inflammation and damage. This inflammation can occur anywhere along the digestive tract, from mouth to anus, with the severity and location of inflammation varying depending on the type of IBD and the individual. Common symptoms of IBD include abdominal pain, diarrhea (sometimes with blood), rectal bleeding, weight loss, fatigue, and reduced appetite.

Living with IBD often involves periods of active disease (flare-ups) and periods of remission. Medical science classifies IBD flare-ups as unpredictable, and as such, IBD can significantly impact a person’s quality of life, through physical discomfort, emotional distress, and limitations in daily activities. The medical approach to managing IBD typically involves medication and/or surgery. As you can see, the article I wrote on the pathophysiology of food sensitivities outlines this exact scenario associated with IBD.

So for this study, researchers examined the colons of the mice who had died following the high-sugar diet. What they found was that the lining of the large intestine was inhibited in its healing and regeneration as signified by diminished expression of cells (intestinal stem cells [ISCs]) needed to maintain barrier integrity of the colon walls, especially after inflammatory damage.

As you can imagine, these stem cells are very important in regenerating damaged epithelium and must divide even faster to replace dead and damaged cells. What we found was that high sugar concentrations directly affected the ability of stem cells in the intestine to regenerate in response to damage. Under high sugar conditions, when they need to increase their function, intestinal stem cells were unable to do so.

– Tim Hand, PhD, senior study author

High-sugar dietThe study authors, naturally, advise people with IBD to avoid high-sugar intake, especially soda and candy. I will take it a step further and say, try to avoid sugar completely, except for very rare occasions, IBD or not. As I pointed out in my article from 2013, everybody walking the planet has foods to which they are sensitive. These foods act as toxins to that person. In over two decades of observation, I have found that refined sugar is poisonous, and I mean with extremely rare exception, to practically every person. This study on mice being administered high-sugar diets simply confirms what I have been sharing with you over the last ten years: and it gives a peek into the pathophysiology of the process. If you are interested in the biochemistry involved in the study, you can read it here: Excess Dietary Sugar Alters Colonocyte Metabolism and Impairs the Proliferative Response to Damage

This study is particularly relevant considering the average American consumes somewhere between 17-34 teaspoons per day, which is more than six times the recommended intake by the American Heart Association. This averages more than 100 pounds of sugars per person each year. Almost all processed foods in the supermarket contain extra sugar and this includes and many “low fat” products.  Sodas, themselves, contain 10 teaspoons of sugar per can. High Fructose corn syrup (HFCS) has replaced sucrose (sugar) in many food products. HFCS is only sold for processed foods; yet, it provides about 8% of the total calories in the average American diet.

Healthy gutFood sensitivities are a reality for all people. Which foods are poisons for which people vary by type. Finding out which foods you should avoid is paramount to preserving your gastrointestinal health. If you find yourself in Los Angeles or Palm Springs (the Coachella Valley), then I am available for consultations. We can find your specific body type, and thus the foods which are toxic to you, and also those which are tonic – or beneficial – to your digestive disposition. What can you do on your own in the meantime? Pay attention to the moments you do not feel well in any part of the digestive system – from mouth to anus – and record the foods you had just before your symptoms arose. It will take patience and perseverance to find the offenders, but if you remove those suspicious foods from your diet, while also removing symptoms, then you are those many steps closer to figuring things out. If you have IBD of any form, I assure you that something in your diet is causing that situation. Very likely sugar is a major contributing factor, but sugar may not be the only problem – so you will have to look. However, this study shows clearly how at least one substance (refined sugar) acts as a toxin to diminish the healing capacity of the colon and its ability to regenerate as needed. Like I said in 2013, from source of irritation, to symptoms, to chronic condition, to frank disease over time. I’ve been watching it unfold – and helping people with real solutions – for over twenty years.

Drugs Causing Disease

By On · Add Comment · In autoimmunity, chemotherapy, Crohn's disease, dermatologists, immune system, immunosuppressive, inflammatory bowel disease, skin cancer, sun exposure, thiopurines, ulcerative colitis, UV radiation

You may not know this but…sometimes drugs used to fight one condition cause other equally health damaging conditions. Take chemotherapy, for instance: it’s immunosuppressive. In other words, it kills all cells–cancer and healthy immune cells together. Not a great thing when the immune system works 24/7 to keep us free from infection and cancers. But that’s the idea–kill all the cells, and let the body rebuild itself with healthy cells, yet sans the cancerous ones.

How about other disorders, like the inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). Immunosuppressive drugs are often given to people suffering from ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease too. These conditions are inflammatory in nature–that is, the body goes through major inflammation of the digestive tract, usually the small intestine or colon, leading to abdominal pain, diarrhea, and bloody stool among other symptoms. To combat them, immunosuppressants are often used to shut down the body’s immune system to prevent it from attacking itself (autoimmunity). Unfortunately, some patients are developing skin cancer as a result.

In a recent French study it was found that both past and present use of a widely used class of immunosuppressants called thiopurines significantly increased the risk of non-melanoma skin cancer in inflammatory bowel disease patients. The increased risk was seen in all patients, even those under 50; however, it increased with age. As a result, researchers recommend that anybody taking thiopurines now or at any time in the past protect their skin from UV radiation and receive regular dermatologic screening, regardless of their age.

Non-melanoma skin cancer includes basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma, which are the most common cancers diagnosed in North America.

I find these results and conclusions rather harrowing for two reasons. First, I strongly believe that these conditions are related to lifestyle factors like diet and toxin ingestion (smoking, for example). Although not necessarily straight forward in which foods are the causative factors, I believe most everybody has foods that they are sensitive to. Unfortunately, they may be foods that aren’t generally recognized as allergens–like the common wheat or dairy–but nevertheless cause the body to respond defensively to them. Repeated ingestion will ultimately lead to inflammation, which can become chronic and thus classified as IBD.

Second, why the treatment option becomes an immunosuppressive drug, in my opinion, is that doctors are simply at a loss at what else to do, so they go for broke–they simply attack the symptoms, or the body’s response–quite foolish I believe. It is not surprising to me that the risk of developing skin cancer goes up. Duh! Suppressed immune system leads to increased infections and increased cancers.

Finally, I think it’s ludicrous that the answer is to “protect oneself” from the life giving rays of the sun. This is just another case of being at a loss. We can’t figure out why our blessed drugs and medical ideology aren’t figuring out this skin cancer thing, so it must be the sun. Uh yeah, the source of all life in the solar system; the entity which provides energy for all living things, and we shouldn’t expose ourselves to it. C’mon.

Further, this anti-sun sentiment has been pushed by dermatologists and the entire medical profession to the degree that people are coating their skin with chemicals so as to prevent themselves from getting the healing and life sustaining rays of the sun. Puh-leeze! No doubt, baking in the sun like a freakin’ piece of bacon is unwise…but so is getting no sun.
Please medical profession wake up! Drugs cause skin cancer, and the inordinate amount of people walking the planet on multiple drugs they take daily is just as likely the cause of increased skin cancer as sun exposure is, probably more so. Thank goodness time acts as the greatest of observation tools.
Copyright © 2013 Dr. Nick Campos - All Rights Reserved.