Crohns Disease and Gluten: 4 Reasons Why IBD

Sufferers Should Not Eat Wheat

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If you have Crohns disease your doctor has probably told you that diet doesnt matter.
You can go ahead and eat whatever youd like, just avoiding foods that seem to
aggravate your symptoms like raw vegetables or spicy foods. If you have strictures, you
might be advised to follow a low-residue diet to prevent obstructions, or if you have had
surgery resulting in a shortened bowel you might be told to limit sugars or fats to
prevent excessive diarrhea. But these dietary interventions do nothing to induce
remission or prevent flare-ups and conventional wisdom among most doctors is that
only pharmaceuticals can accomplish that with diet only being important in as much as
it keeps you generally well nourished.
This is what I was told and believed for much of my 17 year journey with Crohns
disease. The link between the two may not be definitively proven yet, but evidence is
mounting against that conventional wisdom and a lot of smart people are reconsidering
the link between Crohns disease and diet, particularly when it comes to consuming
modern wheat.
Here are four good reasons, all supported by science, to ditch your bread and go glutenfree if you have Crohns disease.

#1: Its all in the family!

Crohns disease and celiac disease are related.

Recent research found that there are common genetic variants between people who
have Crohns disease and those with celiac disease. Three of the four common genes
have to do with how the immune system responds to perceived threats. In patients with
celiac disease, this is a reaction to gluten in the small intestine, a protein found in
wheat. For people with Crohns disease it is believed that the faulty immune response
may be to gut bacteria and may affect the entire digestive track. Earlier studies have
already established that people with celiac disease have a much higher risk of
developing Crohns disease and vice versa, including this 2004 study that found over
25% of Crohns patients also had evidence of celiac disease.
Clearly this doesnt prove that every person with Crohns disease will develop celiac, nor
does it even suggest that avoiding gluten can lessen the severity of Crohns or induce
remission, but it should give us pause, especially since so little is known about what
actually causes Crohns disease. Perhaps Crohns is actually a variant of celiac disease
that has other triggering co-factors. If so, it makes sense to avoid ingesting the specific
protein that is proven to trigger celiac.

#2 It tears your gut apart!

Wheat contributes to leaky gut
Even if you dont actually have celiac disease, there is evidence that gliadin, the
primary immunotoxic protein found in wheat gluten, is capable of increasing the
production of the intestinal protein zonulin, which in turn opens up gaps in the normally
tight junctures between intestinal cells. The worse news for Crohns patients is that
zonulin release seems to be much higher and longer-lasting in in our systems than in
healthy patients.
Paul Jaminet writes about the role wheat plays in increased intestinal permeability
(commonly known as leaky gut) in his book The Perfect Health Diet and expands on
this concept in a 2010 post on his blog. According to Jaminets interpretation of the
scientific data, Leaky gut is a prerequisite for development of autoimmune disease.
Wheat seems to create a transient, mild leaky gut in nearly everyone, but in Crohns
disease the gut becomes chronically and severely leaky in response to wheat
consumption.

#3 It feeds the nasty bacteria!

Damaged intestines cant break down

polysaccharides
And if leaky gut is not scary enough, consider this: wheat and other grains are
comprised of polysaccharides that the damaged intestines of a person with Crohns
disease can not cannot fully digest and absorb, instead remaining in the gut to become
food for microbes that can overgrow and contribute to a worsening cycle of gas and acid
production and even more damage, as described by Elaine Gottschall in the scientific
basis for the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD). The only way to break that vicious cycle
so the bacteria balance can go back to normal is to stop feeding them. This is
particularly a concern for people like me who have had damage to or surgical removal
of the ileocecal valve, making them prone to Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth
(SIBO).

#4 It isnt your great-grandmothers loaf of

bread anymore.
Modern wheat is lower in nutrients and higher in gut
irritants than its ancestor
Dr. William Davis, author of the best-selling book Wheat Belly, describes modern wheat
as a perfect chronic poison and points out that it is an 18-inch tall plant created by
genetic research in the 60s and 70s. It was designed to increase yield per acre and
did a marvelous job doing so, even leading to a Nobel Peace Prize for
agronomist Norman Borlaug who pioneered its development and fed millions in
developing countries. Unfortunately, this genetic tinkering also produced a plant with
an increase in the specific proteins that shown to provoke celiac disease and at the
same time dramatically decreasing mineral density . You could get around some of this
poor nutrient density by eating artificially enriched flour, but the other problems remain.

My personal experience
I cut gluten out of my diet in the context of eliminating all grains when I started
following the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD). I saw some immediate improvement in
my bowel symptoms and a colonoscopy less than 2 months later showed that I only had
patches of inflammation in the lowest part of my colon and rectum that were
consistent with resolving Crohns disease.
My biggest concern at the time, however, was ongoing anemia that none of my doctors
could explain or fix, despite getting regular and repeated iron infusions and even blood
transfusions when my hemoglobin and hematocrit got dangerously low. The clue for me
that diet could potentially be a factor came in reviewing my medical records: the only
time in my entire adult life when I was consistently not anemic and the only
colonoscopy Id ever had that showed no active Crohns disease was during the time
that I was between surgeries and on TPN for my total nutrition. That led me to ask for
another test for celiac disease (it was negative) and then to investigate alternative diets
for inflammatory bowel disease.
Just a few weeks after starting SCD, the numbers on my CBC started to steadily
improve. Four months after I started, I had my first normal results and they have stayed
in the normal range ever since, even though my bowel symptoms still hadnt completely
resolved.
In order to address those lingering symptoms, I have now started to move beyond SCD
and am currently following a diet that more closely resembles the paleo auto-immune

protocol, based on research by Loren Cordain, and expanded upon by Sarah Ballantyne
on her science heavy websiteThe Paleo Mom. Eliminating dairy, legumes, and nuts
returned my bowel functioning to near normal and I have started to add back in some of
the starchy vegetables forbidden on SCD. I may one day also experiment with some of
the other so-called safe starches like white rice, but after learning all that I have
outlined in this post, I dont plan on ever touching gluten again.

The bottom line

Wheat is likely very dangerous for people with Crohns disease, even if you test
negative for celiac disease and your doctor says you can eat whatever you
like. Consider doing a 30-90 day elimination diet and see if your symptoms improve.
What have you got to lose?