why don't the best GI doctors and Specialists for ulcerative colitis or gastron neurologists ever talk about what is the ideal diet for ulcerative colitis this video is all about that the best diet for ulcerative colitis from the perspective of a GI surgeon and gut microbiome specialist I'll go into some important lessons learned in the past decade taking care of patients with ulcerative colitis in my clinic these are useful tips for anyone struggling with alterative colitis and want to address their situations properly useful info so stick [Music] around hi I'm Dr chanasi a surgeon who specializes in reversing inflammation caused by gut microbiome dysfunction my Approach is called the Mind gut immunity method and I'm happy to announce we're in our 12th year we've learned lots of important lessons along the way and have made several important updates for the upcoming year 2025 2026 and beyond our protocols and strategies have helped thousands of patients overcome autoimmune disease and digestive dysfunction we can fix complex and severe conditions such as ulcer of colitis without medication I know it sounds unreal but when you look at intestinal inflammation and autoimmune disease in the context of gut microbiome you'll see that a majority of inflammation is caused by problems with diet digestion sleep stress and exercise these these include illnesses that are related to autoimmune inflammation and digestive dysfunction if you want to know more and see how we do it and see actual success stories check the link in the description or visit mgcl clinic.com to request a discovery call with me I'll share with you some helpful tips on how to get started also there's a bunch of success stories on there from actual patients and you'll learn from these case studies and hopefully apply them to your own life okay let's get into it here's a review paper from 2022 that looked at 90 eight studies discussing nutrition and ulcerative colitis here's another study this one is in kids with ulcerative colitis in the UK Europe from 2018 and here's yet another study this one is from 2019 about dietary interventions in ulcerative colitis now this talk will be focused on the ideal ulcerative colitis diet and what is the best diet for ulcerative colitis if you want remission or if you're managing a flare the ideal diet when you're in an ulcer of colitis flare can be tricky and if you're trying to avoid steroids prazone or biologics that can get pretty complicated as you know we've had many people with ulcer of colitis over the years reverse their symptoms and overcome inflammation without the use of medicines but what makes these people so special because many times when you go to the GI doctor you just hear that ulcer of colitis cannot be cured and in fact they may just offer you tests and some medications and that's it I can tell you from my own personal experience with autoimmune intestinal disease that I was told many of the the same things that simply were not true so in this video I want to focus in on what is the ideal diet for someone with ulcerative colitis and what are some of the biggest mistakes people make when they listen to the wrong advice for ulcerative colitis and hopefully give you some perspective on how to achieve uncommon healing from ulcerative colitis and reverse UC for good okay first major Point phytonutrients are important there are study after study after study that shows the importance of phytonutrients in ulcerative colitis here's one that shows the polyphenol cortin and its importance in ulcerative colitis here's another study that looks at tpin and inflammatory bowel disease here's yet another study that discussed the role of Prebiotic fiber in resistant plant starch by the way there are hundreds if not thousands of papers just like these discussing the intricacies of phytonutrients and ulcer of colitis I could spend a whole month just talking about them but in the interest of being brief let me just summarize a few points phytonutrients are molecular compounds found primarily in plants and fungi that exert a strong positive influence on human health think superfoods micronutrients and antioxidants study after study demonstrates that phytonutrient supplementation in the ulcer to colitis diet helps alleviate disease phytonutrients are divided into several different subtypes tpes phenols chlorophyll thionates phyto enzymes phyto oils prebiotics and alkaloids these eight group ings are critical to your health there are also some other smaller groups such as betal Lanes from beets and herisson from mushrooms but if you concentrate on the eight major categories you will find that they cover the majority of phytonutrients any deficiencies in these phytonutrients cause significant derangements of Mind G immunity the goal is to maximize and optimize consumptions of phytonutrients that you can get from everyday Foods by maximize and optimize I mean increasing the density and diversity of phytonutrients in your diet which is one of the strongest predictors of health so you need to track what these are now if you eat a diet that's low in phytonutrients chances are you will not readily overcome disease caused by inflammation however if you eat a diet high in phytonutrients your risk of inflammation will decrease considerably I'm a strong believer in high does phytonutrient supplementation daily with each meal My Philosophy is that every time you eat is an opportunity to fuel the Mind heal the gut and reset immunity and if you squander these opport unities your health suffers the real benefit of phytonutrients are that they modulate the immune response to inflammation so if you happen to have a predisposition towards ulcerative colitis or inflammation then the phytonutrients can help modulate the response most people who have ulcerative colitis have a deficiency in phytonutrients and therefore have major problems regulating the gut microbiome as you know fiber and resistant starches act as prebiotics that can help the growth of beneficial bacteria in the intestine if you've watched some of my other videos you'll know that since 80% of the immune system is in the gut that the population of bacteria in the gut is very very important you don't want bacteria that causes inflammation you want gut microbiome that prevents and combats inflammation well phytonutrients help with that in a big way second Point nutritional requirements and macronutrient counting okay in the last decade intermittent fasting has been put on the pedestal people think that it helps with inflammation but I'm here to blow the lid off this Theory completely in general fasting for long periods of time is not a good idea I repeat not a good idea here's a study from 2024 that shows intermittent fasting increases the risk of cardiac death by 91% people are literally dropping dead because they're not eating but as you know there are still a lot of people out there that think this is a good idea including people with ulcerative colitis I used to be one of them so short term when you stop eating you feel good and that's because you don't have all that food being metabolized by a pro-inflammatory bacteria in your intestines and your colon but what happens after several days several weeks and several months of doing intermittent fasting is number one you get weight loss and muscle wasting number two you get thyroid dysfunction number three you have problems with cortisol and sympathetic endocrine disruption you have sleep disturbance you have protein calorie malnutrition which means you cannot heal your wounds and you cannot heal the inflammation and you also get nausea reflux abdominal fullness and a decreased appetite on top of that you get extreme intermittent fatigue when these problems manifest then eating normally becomes even more difficult you may end up feeling very bloated gassy lethargic and low energy after eating and those feelings will prevent you from eating substantially in the future this vicious cycle is hard to break especially if you're underweight and by underweight I'm talking about a body mass index of 18 or lower by the way body mass index can be calculated pretty easily um just put your height and weight into one of these calculators and Bam it splits out a number and if you're below BMI 18 with ulcerative colitis then you're in serious trouble I've treated people as low as BMI 13 with ulcer colitis and it's pretty bad when you have low BMI and under weight with ulcerative colitis it means that you're in a catabolic metabolism you arebreaking down protein not building it upso it's pretty bad for intestinalhealing as you can imagine also whenthese folks try to eat they can't theyjust cannot tolerate food and we have tocoach them in this process and thereason I bring this up is that thesolution to a dysfunctional gutmicrobiome should never be stop eatingor avoid food it should be fix theinflammation then eat normally but somany people get caught up and have givenup on trying to figure out what theideal diet is for ulcerative kitis thatthey just end up avoiding eating allogtogether okay now if you're trying tofigure out the macronutrients forulcerative colitis it's important toknow that we're discussing fats carbsand proteins in general if you're tryingto reduce inflammation half yourcalories will need to come from fat andabout 25% from carbs and 25% fromprotein and by the way there's no studyto back this up this is just based on myown professional experience and opinionhaving worked with thousands of patientsover the years now in general if you'retrying to lose weight the carbs and fatscan go even lower with a higher emphasison protein and the total calories needto go down as well now if you're tryingto gain weight specifically muscle it'simportant that the total calories areincreased and for there to be more of abalance between the carbs and the fatsnow these ratios matter and I teachpeople how to track these macronutrientsto reach their desired goal it takes abit of work but trust me it's worth itit's a GameChanger in terms of having abalanced diet and good long-term Healthnow the reason the ratios matter have todo with the gut microbiome the gutmicrobiome contains bacteria andfunguses that grow in the presence ofsugar starch and fiber sugar starch andfiber are collectively consideredcarbohydrates so you have bad bacteriaor fungus Plus sugars carbs and fiberbeing digested by these microorganismsand the result is inflammation simplesugars such as glucose and fructosecause all bacteria and funguses to growsimple starches such as processed flourcan also cause bacterial and fungalovergrowth on the flip side complex orresistant starches can cause selectivegrowth of bacteria fiber also causesselective growth of bacteria you may bethinking well this is really complicatedand hard to plan out why don't I justavoid carbs altogether well you can dothat it's called a carnivore diet thecarnivore diet is basically all meat nofiber whatsoever and some electrolytesso you know we got things like animalMeats which is the foundation of thediet we have red meat we have white meatwe have even organ meats and you have tobe a little bit careful with thisbecause sometimes if you're eating liveryou have issues with high amounts of fatsoluble vitamins such as vitamin d andvitamin A toxicity you have fish andseafood um and then they also emphasizeanimal fats now if you're doingcarnivore accurately you'll be excludingDairy and excluding fiber this isdifferent from just saying you're goingto go low carb diet or keto diet orAtkins diet because you will be totallyavoiding all carbs including fiberlactose starches and sugar in carnivorebut not necessarily in any of thesethese other diets by the way low carbdiet for ulcerative colitis and ketodiet for ulcerative colitis and Atkinsdiets for ulcerative colitis are notgreat ideas if you're still includingthe wrong types of carbs and fiber alsoanother thing I would like to point outthe carnivore diet originally came outof what was called a paleo diet and infact if you're looking at the originalpaleo diet it was more in line with thephytonutrient diet that I stronglyadvocate for since the original paleodiet was comprised of mostly plant-basedfoods with the occasional meat howeverover time this paleo diet for ulra kitisconcept evolved into carnivore if you'regoing to be doing carnivore right theeffect is that you will not be feedingthe bacteria and fungus in your gut anysugar that means no carbs no starchesand no fiber if you're a purist I willsay this this strategy sometimes worksespecially if you're getting out of aflare long term however you have tofigure out if this type of thing issustainable or would produce the resultsyou want it may be good for shortstretches and maybe even for some flaresbut it's not good for fixing microbiomeproblems permanently not so much forthat reason obviously I have my ownexperience on this and I have a wholeother video dedicated to just this topicso feel free to take a look also besidescarnivore there are a couple other dietsthat fall into the category of avoidingcertain carbs you may have heard of aspecific carbohydrate diet or SCD dietthe specific carbohydrate diet is adietary regimen designed to manage andimprove symptoms of variousgastrointestinal disorders byeliminating specific types ofcarbohydrates that are believed to bepoorly absorbed and fermentable by gutbacteria and here's a detailed summaryyou have Meat and Fish that's allowedcertain types of dairy arerestricted vegetables you're mainlyconcentrating on the non-starchyvegetables on this fruit is the samedeal and you're supposed to exclude thehigher fructose fruits then you havenuts andseeds all Gra and starches are excludeda lot of the sugars and sweeteners arealso excluded and obviously theprocessed food this diet also restrictscertain types of legumes in thebeginning and reintroduces them later inthe process the SCD eliminates specifictypes of carbohydrates known asdisaccharides and polysaccharides whichare thought to contribute to bacterialovergrowth and fermentation in the gutI've put out an entire video about howthis diet compares to the phyto diet forthe management of ulcerative colitis inmy opinion it's better to fix the gutmicrobiome dysfunction upfront usingPrecision probiotics then supportingthese healthy strains withphytonutrients the SD diet is not atargeted approach and does not produceconsistent results one more diet tomention that specifically restrictscertain types of fiber is called theFODMAP diet or avoidance of fermentablecarbohydrates so the low FODMAP diet isa dietary approach designed to managesymptoms of ulcer de colitis and otherfunctional gastrointestinal disorders bylimiting Foods that contain certaintypes of fermentable carbohydrates andhere's a detailed summary most proteinis allowed vegetables are categorizedinto low FODMAP or high FODMAP same withfruits grains and cereals need to begluten-free but you can do things likerice quinoa oats and corn and there alsoa bunch of dairy Alternatives that areallowed you'll have to avoid the highfod matat fubs things like apples pearsmangoes cherries garlic onionscauliflowermushrooms a lot of the legumes and beansand pulses will be excluded the dietbasically focuses on reducing the intakeof fodmaps which are short chain fattyacids and sugar alcohols that are poorlyabsorbed in the intestine FODMAP standsfor fermentable oligosaccharides sothese things are found in things likewheat onions garlic disaccharides whichare found in lactose containing productslike milk and yogurt you also havemonosaccharides which are found inthings like you know fructose rich foodssuch as apples and Honeys and there'salso sugar alcohols by limiting thesefermentable carbohydrates the diet aimsto reduce symptoms such as bloating gasabdominal pain and diarrhea associatedwith IBS and other gut disorders there'san elimination phase there's areintroduction phase so you may beasking there's a bunch of diets outthere that avoid carbohydrates whichones actually work how does this relateto inflammation in the gut microbiomethe problem I see with these diets isthat they're trying to totally avoid theissue of gut microbiome dysfunction atthe root if you have bacterior fungusthat processes carbohydrates and causesovergrowth and harmful metabolites youcan even see overgrowth of bacteria andfunguses such as sibo and candida theselead to higher histamine levels higherlevels of inflammatory cyto kindes andcause a whole host of symptoms such asfatigue bloating brain fog lethargy I'vediscussed these symptoms before in myother videos so you have gut microbiomedysfunction paired with carbs sugars andfiber which lead to inflammation due toharmful metabolites and so we're talkingan immune response and gut microbiomeovergrowth the diets I've discussed sofar just deal with the carbohydratessugar and fiber parts of this equationthey do not do a good job of fixing thegut microbiome long term so in a waythese diets will just temporarilysidestep the problem and pass the buckso to speak at a later time in thefuture you'll have to deal with thisthat brings me to my third point theideal ulcerative colitis diet should bemicrobiome specific all of these dietsthat avoid carbs are not addressing theroot cause of this problem and that'sthat the gut microbiome is dysfunctionalthis issue can only be addressed throughthe use of focused phytonutrients andpatented probiotic formulations believeit or not there's a lot of thought thatgoes into design desing and perfectingthe phyto diet for clients I knowbecause I do it all myself this is alsowhy you're in the middle of this verylong video so you can see actually whatthe thought is that goes into all thisbut suffice it to say the bottom line isthat these other diets don'tconsistently work they may worktemporarily but they don't really repairthe root cause of this problem andthat's the gut microbiome dysfunctionthere are more specific and specializedways for addressing this problem usingthe Mind gut immunity approach we fixthe microbiome up front using Precisionprobiotics then we tailor the diets tothat specific microbiome this approachactually fixes the problem related toulcerative collidus long-term to achieveremission so as I discussed previouslyin the mind gut immunity Clinic we usePrecision probiotics to recalibrate thegut microbiome in the first week ofworking with new clients theseprobiotics are not found in stores andhave plenty of clinical data supportingtheir use and gut Related Disordersturns out most of the probiotics you buyat stores don't do anything they don'thelp anything so don't really waste yourtime with that I've tried them all turnsout you don't need High cfu counts or 30different strains or even Refrigerationall you need are four highly targetedand effective strains that can takeresidents in the gut then lay down aprotected bofilm that competes againstbad bacteria and funguses now to supportthese healthy colonies of bacteria andfungus we need phytonutrients and asdiscussed previously thesephytonutrients are found most mostly inPlants certain proteins can triggerimmune responses for example complexproteins May provoke inflammationtherefore some people avoid complexproteins entirely and generally I seethe same caution with them as well butyou can take some of these diets way toofar and here's an example you have avegan or a plant exclusive diet you knowvegan diets are these plantbased dietaryregimens that exclude all animalproducts including meat Dairy eggs andhoney and focuses on consuming justplant plant-based items and here's asummary you can take a look at ityourself the big problem here mostpeople will be undereating protein theprotein calorie malnutrition is terribleand if you're trying to heal intestinaland colon inflammation you need aminoacids and protein needs to be about 25%of your daily calories also there are alot of vegan foods that are justunhealthy and we're talking aboutprocessed foods Foods additives fakeMeats fake cheeses with harmfulchemicals so this approach certainlydoesn't work for my clients I would saya more balanced approach is probably abetter idea one of my favorite diets isactually a Mediterranean diet it's adietary pattern inspired by traditionaleating habits of countries bordering theMediterranean C it emphasizes WholeFoods but particularly plant-based Foodshealthy fats and lean protein and here'sa summary now the only downside here isthat there's no way to track the amountof phytonutrients you're consuming alsoit's important to have 50% of yourcalories coming from Omega fats whichhelp with gut microbiome problems I likethe Mediterranean diet a lot but theonly drawback I see is that it's notconsistent when it comes to expectationsregarding tracking daily nutrients it'scertainly got all the right foods butthe ratios may be off and that can be aproblem my clients who are on thephytonutrient diet we track the numberof carbs fats and proteins and themicronutrients every single day thatmeans every day we're tracking thesethings and ensuring that the gutmicrobiome was maintained and optimizedby the diet it's a much more targetedapproach for dealing with autoimmuneinflammation all right the fourthconcept food diary and food sensitivity tests the fourth concept to keep in mind the ideal ulcerative colitis diet should take into account individual food sensitivities I have an entire video about food sensitivity tests in ulcerative colitis and if you're wondering on what the best test to get or how to interpret these tests check out that video on my channel it'salready posted now suffice it to say every diet needs to take into account individual food aversions sensitivities and allergies the best way to figure this out is by keeping an in-depth food diary I know it sounds kind of basic and somewhat tedious but all of our clients are required to do that the one thing  I'll say is that when you're inflamed all foods may feel like they're problematic compared to when you'refeeling healthy you can eat certainfoods that you wouldn't even think ofeating when unwell so just keep in mindthat food sensitivities can change andevolve over time and it's very importantto keep this in mind if you want to geta food sensitivity and allergy test theyfall into the following categories thefirst is a skin prick test this is yourclassic allergy test you go to yourdoctor and they put a bunch of littlepricks on your back and you see whichone Wells up the second is a serum IGtest ig's test for food allergies sothis is a blood test that looks atcommon food allergies and sees if you'rereactive the next test is a serumigg4 this tests for sensitivities notquite allergies although there is somecrossover the serum igg4 tests are themost common food sensitivity test youcan find on the commercial Market lastlyyou have a serum mediator release testand this is the newest test that looksat a Lucy a white blood cell and how itreacts to a food antigen so when thatwhite blood cell comes into contact witha food and it degranulates or reactsthen it decreases in size that change insize is what the test reads out as aSensitivity I review and interpret thesetests for clients all the time to helpthem make sense of what's going on Iactually have an entire new video on thetopic of interpreting food sensitivitytests in ulcerative colitis and the roleof food sensitivity testings in IBD inthat video I talk about the varioustypes of tests the pros and cons and howto interpret them I also discuss theideal timing for obtaining them and therecovery process sometimes it's not agood idea to get these tests when you'reinflamed because they high number offalse positive results when you'reinflamed you have sensitivity to a lotof things even foods that you're notnormally sensitive to when you'rehealthier and recovered then you get amore accurate representation of what'struly an allergy and a Sensitivity Ihave an entire video on this so be sureto check it out the AIP diet is designedto help manage autoimmune diseases byreducing inflammation and promoting guthealth it's a stricter version of thepaleo diet and focuses on eliminatingpotential dietary triggers ofinflammation and autoimmunity the diettypically progresses through severalphases first you have an eliminationphase where you're eliminating all thefoods that may cause inflammation orimmune reactions these can includethings like rains legumes Dairy eggsnuts seeds nightshades and then you havea reintroduction phase where yougradually reintroduce these eliminatedFoods one by one to identify whichtriggers are present for your symptomsand this helps personalize the diet toeach individual person then there's amaintenance phase where you can maintaina diet and avoid the triggers whilefocusing on nutrient-denseanti-inflammatory foods same is alsotrue for a low histamine diet the onlyreason I'm mentioning it here is that itoften makes its way into conversationsabout inflammation and the idea here isthat you avoid foods that triggerhistamine commonly but as I've mentionedpreviously the gut microbiome is themain producer of histamine in the bodyso things like bacteria candida and siboare all things that need to be addressedthe lwh histamine diet spends a lot oftime trying to avoid common triggerfoods but it doesn't address the gutmicrobiome component and it's notspecific to each individual since everyperson has different triggers I haveseveral videos comparing thephytonutrient diet to each of theindividual diets I mentioned here today so check out the description below to see those videos because I go way in depth into some of these diets and why they fail and what you can look out for the key points of a low histamine diet include avoiding High histamine foods like aged cheeses fermented foods processed Meats alcohol vinegar certain fish and avoiding histamine liberators which are foods that release histamine stored inside of it which means avoiding foods that release histamine stored in the body such as Tomatoes strawberries eggplants spinach avocados certain nuts and then you also want to avoid foods that have biogenic amines and these are things like bananas chocolates and certain Citrus Foods these inhibit histamine degradation so just to recap when you designing an ideal diet for ulcer of colitis the four principles we use are phytonutrients nutritional requirements microbiome specificity and food sensitivities in the mind gut immunity Clinic we spend quite a bit of time and effort developing custom plans for each individual given these requirements and we help coach our clients to maximize accountability and compliance this is why we get consistently great results in our Clinic compared to other practices that Focus only on medication we also teach people how to do this themselves from home or while they're traveling or when they're abroad so that they're not lost they get meal plans food guides recipes grocery lists it's great imagine not having to figure out all the Nuance details for old sort of kitis and having a resource at your fingertips that helps you do just that our clients can do this from anywhere so that wraps this up for this session be sure to check out my other videos comparing individual diets to the phyto diet and how they stack up as always if you think this video will someone you know be sure to share it with them lastly like And subscribe for more content such as this music

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