For our clients, we help design custom diet plans based on several key criteria: Microbiome Specificity, Phytonutrients, Macronutrients, and Food Sensitivity. These four criteria help determine whether any type of diet will work for managing Crohn’s Disease symptoms during a flare, as well as healing inflammation over time, to reach remission. In this video, we review many popular diets out there, and compare them to the Mind-Gut-Immunity method.
carnivore diet for Crohn’s disease does it work and how do you get the best results this video covers everything you need to know about carnivore diet for Crohn’s disease and how it Stacks up against other diets we will cover common pitfalls as well as some guidelines on how to track [Music] progress hi I’m Dr chanu a surgeon dedicated to reducing inflammation caused by gut microbiome imbalances I myself struggled with digestive dysfunction and autoimmune information in my early 20s and successfully put together a methodology that works not only in me but also my patients my method is called the Mind gut immunity approach and has resulted in thousands of successes over the years if you or someone you know struggles with crohn’s disease and wants to rid themselves of inflammation for good check out our website mgic clinic.com and schedule a discovery call with me I’ll walk you through some practical steps for Crohn’s disease recovery and how to achieve lasting results in just 6 weeks all right let’s get started here’s a case series from Harvard from September 2024 that shows ketogenic and carnivore diets working in patients with crohn’s disease but here’s another 2022 study that looks at carnivore diets and their association with the development of Crohn’s Disease and ulcerative colitis so with such differing viewpoints how do we sort out what works and what doesn’t work for Crohn’s disease now as I mentioned in the other video entitled ideal diet for Crohn’s disease I am a strong supporter of customized phytonutrient diet plans for each individual based on the following four criteria I use these four criteria to determine whether a Crohn’s disease diet will work or not and just to recap the four criteria are number one phytonutrients number two macronutrient requirements number three microbiome specificity and number four food sensitivity if you want a quick recap of what each of these four criteria mean in depth feel free to check out the ideal diet for Crohn’s disease video but I’ll provide a brief recap here in this video so let’s talk about the carnivore diet and how it Stacks up to other diets like the phyto diet which I advocate for for Crohn’s disease so just a review you have bad bacteria and fungus in your intestines which process carbs sugars starches and fiber which leads to inflammation the harmful bacteria and fungus in your intestine ferment carbohydrates such as sugar starches and fiber leading to bloating gas and inflammation when we examine why the carnivore diet sometimes works for Crohn’s disease it’s because the diet totally eliminates the carbohydrates as part of this equation decreasing the source of inflammation the carnivore diet for Crohn’s disease consists entirely of meat eliminating all fiber and including some electrolytes so animal meat is the foundation of the diet it can include red meat from beef lamb pork and Game Meats you can have white Meats like turkey turke chicken and other poultry organ Meats like liver kidneys and heart which are encouraged for their nutrient density fish and seafood and you can have various types of fish like salmon trout tuna and shellfish like shrimp crab Lobster they also focus on animal fats including sources of fats like lard and Tallow and duck fat which they use for cooking and added fat intake you have eggs from chickens ducks quailes and other birds which are common in the diet this diet cuts out all carboh hydrates including fiber lactose starches and sugars unlike keto or low carb diets that might still include problematic carbs a strict carnivore approach eliminates them entirely so basically instead of feeding the bad bacteria and fungus the carnivore diet sidesteps this problem and provides substantial calories in the form of proteins and fats this is why it can be used as a temporizing strategy during a flare or for people who don’t typically respond to other Di however remember those four criteria I discussed let’s see how this plays out long term like I just said no carbs means that bad bacteria and fungus don’t get fed but it doesn’t mean they totally go away or that a healthy balance can remain intact and I’ll go into that just a bit so let’s look at the first criteria which is phytonutrients phytonutrients are micronutrients derived from plant superfoods they provide antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds that help in the case of Crohn’s Disease here’s here’s a 2021 study on the gastroprotective effects of polyphenols and its an impact on Crohn’s disease and here’s one from 2018 discussing Prebiotic fiber and resistant starch as it relates to the microbiome changes in Crohn’s disease phytonutrients fall into several key categories including polyphenols tpin thiocyanates fiber resistant starches Omega fats and alkaloids these micronutrients are critical to Healing body-wide inflammation starting with the gut in the case of a carnivore diet for Crohn’s disease it’s obviously lacking in these nutrients so if you decide to pursue a carnivore diet for healing Crohn’s disease one way to make sure that you have phytonutrients is to add herbal teas herbal tees are a great way to get phytonutrients without added carbohydrates fiber starch or sugar it’s also worth mentioning that there are several types of diets that are related to the carnivore diet that do have phytonutrients still included one is the paleo diet which when it was originally conceived actually included certain vegetables although nowadays it’s almost synonymous with carnivore you also have low carb keto and Atkins diets which limit carb intake but all of these correlated diets do have phytonutrients as part of them so it may be something to consider so as far as phytonutrients are concerned a strict carnivore diet definitely doesn’t allow for most of them meaning that the benefits that come from phytonutrients for Crohn’s disease inflammation will not be realized the next criteria is macroon nutrient requirements the carnivore diet for Crohn’s disease actually does a pretty good job fulfilling the macronutrient requirements macronutrients are carbs fats and proteins and based on your weight height and activity level you can enter this data into a calculator available on my website which will estimate what your macronutrient requirements are now if you follow a carnivore diet you obviously need to make the appropriate adjustments such as increasing the fat and the protein while decreasing the carbs in general a diet that gets half its calories from fat is normally a good thing although I don’t particularly like the saturated fats and meats which are associated with certain inflammatory processes I also don’t like the animal-based cholesterol in the meat which can allow for increases in arachadonic acid in the body I have a couple videos that actually go into the biochemistry of these Pathways I describe both of these Pathways of Crohn’s Disease inflammation in other videos on my channel so if you need a refresher feel free to look at those videos when I designed diet for my clients they are generally lower in carb anyways for obvious reasons and most of the fats come from plant-based Omega sources so you don’t have these problems but from Strictly a macronutrient requirement perspective the carnivore diet for Crohn’s disease works really well next let’s look at microbiome specificity let’s go back to this equation you have bad bacteria and fungus which feed on carbs and the result is inflammation the carnivore diet removes the carbs but does it selectively modulate and select for good BAC CIA the answer to this question is a resounding no now I know what I’m about to say here is a bit controversial because there are other people here on the internet and on YouTube that feel that the gut microbiome diversity is good in people who follow the carnivore diet there are even entire Reddit threads dedicated to debating the sound but let me tell you from a practical perspective I have reviewed hundreds if not thousands of stool studies in my career never once did I see a normal functional healthy micro biome in someone that follows the carnivore diet and has Crohn’s disease the very nature of Crohn’s Disease means that there is inflammation occurring due to gut microbiome dysfunction and in fact at the start of our program we’ve used patented probiotics from Japan to recalibrate the gut microbiome and push these bad bacteria out of the system however how do you then carefully select for and promote the good bacteria in the system it’s not by avoiding carbs it’s by selecting specific ratios and quantities of phytonutrients and this is where the Mind gut immunity method shines we carefully designed the diet to promote certain strains of beneficial bacteria which lay down a competitive bofilm and push the bad bacteria and fungus out what happens over the course of several weeks is that the body itself produces less tnf Alpha and Inter Lucan six and fewer pro-inflammatory cyto kindes as a result of these specific strains of bacteria being promoted the biggest problem with the carnivore diet for Crohn’s disease is that it totally ignores the root cause it s steps the problem associated with bad bacteria and fungus in the system so temporarily you’re not feeding at carbohydrates but the minute you add back carbs fiber starches or sugar you have a major problem and historically this has been the pattern I’ve seen people fail the carnivore diet for Crohn’s disease because it’s not sustainable long term and when they return to eating carbs their symptoms come back because they never address the actual problem which is gut microbiome dysfunction in comparison the phyto diet actually does fix the microbiome related issues underlying Crohn’s disease which means longterm you actually have more freedom to eat what you want deviating from the diet sometimes with cheat meals without any consequences I typically teach my clients how to cheat on their diets in the second and third months of the program and this is because by then they mostly fixed the underlying gut microbiome related issues with crohn’s disease in a lasting way not just with a quick fix and I really hate temporary fixes the carnivore diet does serve a purpose such as when certain clients are in a flare but longterm it’s not a good strategy when compared to customized phyto diets we create for our clients I’ve screened many Discovery calls from people over the years who have tried and failed the carnivore diet for Crohn’s disease many of them will say they got temporary relief but then their croh symptoms came right back and this is the typical story I hear I hope this honest review of the carnivore diet for Crohn’s disease helps you figure out if this is something you want to do I think if you’re going to do it the real value is temporizing symptoms but longterm you’ll have to address the gut microbiome issue if you want to be successful at permanently ridding yourself of Crohn’s Disease medications and symptoms okay the final criteria food sensitivities food sensitivities are a Hot Topic in the realm of Crohn’s disease in my other talk I described the four main food sensitivity tests that are available the skin prick test the IG blood test the igg4 blood test and the newer mediator release blood test if you need a recap of these tests be sure to check out my video discussing food sensitivity testing in Crohn’s disease now with specific regard to carnivore diets there’s this concept of complex protein that I’ve discussed previously you basically ingest large amounts of protein which are broken down in the stomach and upper intestines by proteases these proteases break down the protein into individual amino acids which are then absorbed into the bloodstream but sometimes these proteins do not completely break down and form small peptide chains which can cause really bad inflammation we see this in various types of complex proteins especially ones that are animal derived so the likelihood that there’s a sensitivity to one or even several types of meat and even eggs is quite High that’s why it’s risky to adopt a carnivore diet for Crohn’s disease because your options become quite limited all right that’s my talk in the comments below tell me your experience with carnivore type diets and what’s worked for you and what didn’t I’m curious to hear about your experiences as you know I’ve had great success using the Mind gut immunity method in my clients and I’m a strong supporter of customized phytonutrient diets and focused gut microbiome recalibration for our clients to achieve lasting success if you found found this video helpful don’t forget to like And subscribe for more content such as this as always this is Dr Chan osri with a minda immunity clinic and I’ll see you next time [Music]
