Sometimes you have to listen to your gut.
Actions for Change
There’s a lot that needs to be done to change how Crohn’s and Ulcerative Colitis patients are treated so that we see more stories of triumph rather than stories of suffering. These posts contribute ideas, calls for action and examples towards this goal.
Nutrition More Effective Than Steroids in Children With Crohn’s Disease [21May02]
Aug 22nd
This was presented in 2002 at a conference called “Digestive Disease Week” (DDW).
In 2010, 13,000 GI health professionals attended the conference in New Orleans.
Why isn’t nutrition taken more seriously by GI doctors?
Amplify’d from www.medscape.com
Alternate link: Click on the first link with the words “medscape.com” in the URL of this Google search.
Nutritional therapy achieves better long-term outcome than steroids in children with active Crohn’s disease
“In children with Crohn’s disease, clinical trials have demonstrated that polymeric or elemental diet therapy is as effective as steroids in inducing remission, whilst avoiding steroid side effects,”
Of 44 children (median age at diagnosis of Crohn’s disease, 12.8 years) elemental diet therapy induced clinical remission in 40 (90%). Median time to remission was 6 weeks (range, 2-12 weeks), and median duration of first remission was 54 weeks (range, 4-312 weeks).
Of 16 children whose relapses were treated with elemental diet therapy, 12 (75%) went into remission.
“This data suggests that there are significant long-term benefits to using elemental diet therapy as first-line therapy for Crohn’s disease,” the authors write. “Steroids may be avoided in nearly half the cases, or their use postponed by 68 weeks.”
In a second study from Naples and Rome, Italy, 37 patients, aged 7 to 16 years, with active Crohn’s disease received nutritional therapy, while 10 comparable patients received methylprednisolone, 2 mg/kg/day for 4 weeks, with subsequent tapering over at least 4 weeks.
Within 8 weeks of treatment, 32 of the 37 children assigned to nutritional therapy and 9 of the 10 given steroids went into clinical remission.
Seven patients on nutritional therapy and none on steroids showed complete mucosal healing (P<.005)
“In children with active Crohn’s disease, exclusive nutritional therapy shows a more rapid effect than steroids in inducing clinical remission and is markedly more effective than steroids in producing healing of mucosal inflammation,” write Roberto B. Canani and colleagues. “Nutritional therapy alone is the preferred form of therapy for children with active Crohn’s disease.”
DDW Annual Meeting: Abstracts 103976, 107178. May 19 and 21, 2002.
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/91xr
