I have a friend with Crohn’s Disease, who often struggles with the motivation to even figure out how to improve his diet in order to prevent relapse. I suggested he should find a consistent way to not have to worry about diet, such as prepared meals, a snack plan, meal replacements (Soylent is out soon!), or dietary supplement.
As usual, I’m pinging the rationalists to see if there happens to be a medically inclined recommendation lurking about. Soylent seems promising, and doesn’t seem the sort of thing that he and his doctor would have even discussed. My appraisal of his doctor consulations seem to be something along the lines of “You should track your diet according to these guidelines, and try to see what causes relapse” rather than “Here’s a cure all solution not entirely endorsed by the FDA that will solve all of your motivational and health problems in one fell swoop.” For my friend, drilling into sweeping diet changes and tracking seems like an insurmountable challenge, especially with the depression caused by simply having the disease.
I’d like to be able to purchase something for him that would let him go about his life without having to worry about it so much. Any ideas on whether Soylent could be the solution, in particular as to its potential for Crohn’s?
Consider helminthic therapy. Hookworm infection down-regulates bowel inflammation and my parasitology professor thinks it is a very promising approach. NPR has a reasonably good popularization. Depending on the species chosen, one treatment can control symptoms for up to 5 years at a time. It is commercially available despite lack of regulatory approval. Not quite a magic bullet, but an active area of research with good preliminary results.
There is no known “cure all solution not entirely endorsed by the FDA that will solve all of your motivational and health problems in one fell swoop.” A lot of people with Crohn’s seem to get some benefit from changing their diet. But the conclusions they draw always seem to contradict each other and in general the improvements are temporary. What it looks like to me (and at least on person with her own experience of the problem) is that radically changing your diet every few years is what you need to do.
I have a friend with Crohn’s Disease, who often struggles with the motivation to even figure out how to improve his diet in order to prevent relapse. I suggested he should find a consistent way to not have to worry about diet, such as prepared meals, a snack plan, meal replacements (Soylent is out soon!), or dietary supplement.
As usual, I’m pinging the rationalists to see if there happens to be a medically inclined recommendation lurking about. Soylent seems promising, and doesn’t seem the sort of thing that he and his doctor would have even discussed. My appraisal of his doctor consulations seem to be something along the lines of “You should track your diet according to these guidelines, and try to see what causes relapse” rather than “Here’s a cure all solution not entirely endorsed by the FDA that will solve all of your motivational and health problems in one fell swoop.” For my friend, drilling into sweeping diet changes and tracking seems like an insurmountable challenge, especially with the depression caused by simply having the disease.
I’d like to be able to purchase something for him that would let him go about his life without having to worry about it so much. Any ideas on whether Soylent could be the solution, in particular as to its potential for Crohn’s?
Consider helminthic therapy. Hookworm infection down-regulates bowel inflammation and my parasitology professor thinks it is a very promising approach. NPR has a reasonably good popularization. Depending on the species chosen, one treatment can control symptoms for up to 5 years at a time. It is commercially available despite lack of regulatory approval. Not quite a magic bullet, but an active area of research with good preliminary results.
There is no known “cure all solution not entirely endorsed by the FDA that will solve all of your motivational and health problems in one fell swoop.” A lot of people with Crohn’s seem to get some benefit from changing their diet. But the conclusions they draw always seem to contradict each other and in general the improvements are temporary. What it looks like to me (and at least on person with her own experience of the problem) is that radically changing your diet every few years is what you need to do.