Comments on: Avoid These 3 Common “Flare Triggers”

By: Ayelet Schwartz

Ayelet Schwartz

Reading this just blew my mind…completely blew my mind! I have suffered with UC for a number of years and then right around the time of diagnosis I was also diagnosed with a sulfite allergy. I’m completely anaphylactic when sulfites are ingested. I read somewhere a while back that people with Crohn’s/UC are also more likely to have food allergies but after reading this I’m wondering if there’s a connection between the UC and the sulphite allergy. I’m a bit “chemistry challenged” but this makes me think…Anyway, I have been meds free for about 6 years now and follow an anti-inflammatory diet. The SCD works for me when I flare but the flares have not been frequent and when I flare, they don’t last as long they used to. Love this site!

By: Steven Wright

Steven Wright

In reply to flavia in Oz.

@Flavia – Interesting, actually neither of us have been down this rabbit hole so thanks for posting it. In general we see a lot of flare resulting in the behavior you mentioned because there is an underlying hormonal dysregulation in most IBD cases. Diet is very powerful but as we heal, we slowly shift to more inflammatory food choices and live a higher stress lifestyle which only harm hormone status more. Not saying that you haven’t hit on something profound here just that it’s usually a much larger system failure that causes a flare.

By: flavia in Oz

flavia in Oz

Hi there, thanks you guys for your website. Very informative and inspiring.

I was wondering about your opinion on the impairment of H2S-clearance causing the flares in UC. The SCD diet (modified for up to 100g of lamb/chicken meat per day) worked fine with me last year when I was suffering from pancolits and dilation of colon. It induced a remission which lasted 11 months. Unfortunately, UC reactivated some months ago due to a simultanous, prolonged and large consumption of yogourt and nuts. I indulged too much! It was really bad, and made me loose 7 Kg in 6 weeks. I read in the scientific literature that some people with UC have a deficiency of detoxyfying enzymes (sulfotransferases in their colonocytes) therefore these enzymes cannot work fast enough to counteract the sulfur-reducing-bacteria SRB which generate sulfide H2S. As H2S builds up, it is extremely toxic and cannot be efficiently converted into sulfites by the enzymes. Sulfites are then into the urines: so low levels into the urines mean that we’ve got poor clearance of sulfides in the guts! Sulfide pooling comes from processing foods or endogenously from our body biochemistry (GSSH, lack of vit B12 which converts homocysteine into methionine, sialomucins, etc). Here are some pieces of scientific evidence that claim SRB and sulfides as causes of UC relapses. The other problem is that the oxidation of fatty foods is also impaired when H2S builds up in the colon: butyrate is not than uptaken by colonocytes properly. Some papers:
‘Sulphate-reducing bacteria and hydrogen sulphide in the aetiology of ulcerative colitis’ F. E. Rowan1,2, N.G. Docherty1,2, J. C. Coffey2,3 and P. R. O’Connell1,2,3 (2008) Wiley InterScience DOI: 10.1002/bjs.6454
‘Mechanisms of Microbial Hydrogen Disposal in the Human Colon and Implications for Health and Disease’ Noriko Nakamura,1,4 Henry C. Lin,5 Christopher S. McSweeney,6 Roderick I. ackie,1,3,4 and H. Rex Gaskins1,2,3,4 (2010) Annu. Rev. Food Sci. Technol. 1:363–95

Also: vitamin b12 + folic acid + homocysteine levels are not acknowledged as ‘official’ markers in UC but they are strongly discussed into the scientific literature on IBD.

cheers
flavia, brisbane, Oz