Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD)

[rinne]

....

We have become so reliant on doctors that we think if something happens we can just go along and the doc will fix it. Unfortunately that rarely happens as most medications are merely props and sadly, so many would not have to go to the doc in the first place if they took care of themselves and ate good nutritious food.

I so agree. What blows me away is how good real food tastes and how awful that other stuff is, even before being ill I cared about what I ate.

[mftnchn]

GFlady, so sorry this is tough, but I agree, hang in there as it is worth it totally!!

Yes, the first week I had huge shifts with BMs. I tend toward C, I had C, D, weird changes in color and consistency, and a ball of what had to be worms, sorry TMI. By the second week I felt hugely better.

With the candida you might not want to, but what I did is when I felt so hungry, take a teaspoon of honey. That seemed to ease it for me. The hungry--horrible part--passed in a week or two, but was especially bad at first.

Can you sip homemade broth?

Goat milk, what brand are you using? The other thing is what are you using for culture? I found that the straight acidophilus (Kirkman) gives a mild yogurt. If the yogurt gets old and then I do a new batch from it, it can get very very strong and sour.

My posts aren't showing up for 1-2 days usually so I'll also PM this info as I think you might get it faster.

Sherry

[pele]

Hi everybody, HELP ME!!!!! I have started the SCD, today was my second day of intro. I CAN`T STAND IT!!!

And my yogurt...well, I hope the cow milk yogurt tastes a bit better. This is not bad, but very sour, and the cheese cake I made from it, was truly bad. It tasted like a goat, serisouly! Has a very strong taste. Is anybody out there experiencing this?

Hi GFL

As Dawn pointed out, Elaine did not promote a strict intro. She said she could never make up her mind about how much intro was necessary and each edition of BTVC has different info. Are you following the intro from pecanbread? If so, remember that this is a site for autistic children rather than adult celiacs, although the recipes are great.

I am having great success with the diet and did no intro at all, just quit eating the stuff not on the diet. So my suggestion is find a few things on the legal list and eat them in place of fries and chocolate! I ate peanut butter, honey and fruit right from the start and it helped me get through the junkfood withdrawal.

Goats milk and products made from it can have a strong taste/smell if the does are kept in the same barn as the bucks. It is only the unneutered male goats that have the strong odor. There are dairies that keep the does seperate, and their products have a milder, more palatable taste. It is also possible to have success on this diet without any dairy products. Some of us are just plain casein intolerant, no matter how long the yogurt is fermented or what animal it comes from.

Let us know how you are doing.

[GermanMia]

Hi all,

again my internet broke down - better it than I, but anyway, I lost track again, sigh.

First of all - GFLady, I agree with the others, stick to the SCD if you think it is the right thing. The first days or maybe two week can be terrible, but it's really, really worth the pain

And I totally agree with pele about the legal stuff that might get you over your cravings. I tried carrots with nutbutter which turned out to be much more satisfying than any chocolate bar I could imagine!

Now after four months of SCD I found kind of balance in my eating. After discovering the fructose malabsorption I kicked out all fruits and vegetables except grapefruit, papaya, cranberries, corn salad, spinach and zucchini. My vili turned out to be astonishingly okay although the tissue transglutaminase was still high. But after slowly adding more and more bacteria (e. coli and lactobacteria), taking HCL, pancreas enzymes and some herbal extract to activate the bile production I must say that I really get much better. I feel full and fed after eating, not constantly hungry anymore, and I only get tired at about six in the evening, not around midday. I didn't gain weight until now but my muscles seem to work better, much less weakness. So maybe sometime I will be able to add some more veggies to my diet

Hope you all do well - and my internet now won't brake down again!!!

Mia

[mftnchn]

Mia, it is good to hear from you, and so glad you are doing well!

Can you tell me again how you discovered the fructose intolerance? I'm wondering if I need to have that tested as well when I check my malabsorption this next visit to my doctor.

Sherry

[GermanMia]

Sherry,

that was quite simple. Nothing but a H2-Test, i.e. breath test. That way you can also find out if you have a small intestine bacterial overgrowth which also can cause huge problems.

How are you doing at the moment? Sorry - I really lost track because after getting rid of the technical problems now I have tons of work to do...

Mia

[AliB]

Hi All. Good to see the thread pick up again.........

I have been reading up quite a bit about blood sugar. That is, and has been a problem for me for years - I used to get a lot of hypos when I was younger then became diabetic when I hit 40. The BS problems went hand-in-hand with the carb intolerance and I was told years ago to eat low-carb, but when you are young you don't think in long-term terms and although I felt good on it, had lots more energy and lost weight, I eventually went back to the higher carb routine again.

I tried Atkins about 13 years ago and did pretty well on that - I didn't go overboard on the protein but I did 'up' the green veg consumption but I took too much notice of the 'doubting Thomases' that kept bleating on about kidney damage and all that so cut back - and the minute I started to introduce the carbs I couldn't stop!

Now, of course, I am kicking myself and wondering if I had paid attention and stuck to the low-carb right from the start whether I might have at least staved off the diabetes, or even prevented it! At least I could cope with low-carb back then - even some grains but now in order to cope I really need to be NO-carb!

What I have picked up on is that it seems that at least 75% of people who follow the 'Western' diet have issues with Blood Sugar to a greater or lesser degree. I have been re-reading 'Protein Power' by Michael and Mary Dan Eades and to my mind there is a lot of sense in their 'arguments'.

If Blood Sugar is not controlled properly then it can set up all sorts of problems. A high-carb diet will continuously prompt the Pancreas into pumping out insulin. The resulting high level of insulin constantly floating around in the blood can not only encourage weight gain but can also lead to the insulin receptors in the cells becoming less sensitive. Glucose can't get in properly to work in the cells and the whole process then sets up a cascade of other issues. The Pancreas pumps out insulin to control the blood sugar and keep it stable for a good reason - without that process working properly we are set for problems.

Although diabetes is rapidly increasing year-on-year, we don't have to be diabetic to experience unstable blood sugar. Even young people can have problems - my daughter in her twenties has had problems with low blood-sugar. My eldest grandson at 7 comes out of school in the afternoons generally in a right old strop - give him something to eat and he is fine - but that shouldn't happen as his body ought to be able to control it itself. When everything is working properly, under normal circumstances if the sugar level falls too far, normally the Liver would chuck out a load of glucose into the bloodstream to bring it back up, but for many people that doesn't happen.

Why, is little understood, but I wonder if it comes down to an insensitivity thing again - if the Liver has been 'programmed' into assuming that every time we get hungry we will supply the glucose ourselves, in the form of carbs, then it likely will lose it's urge to do it for us.

That is what is so good about the SCD - because it is naturally low-carb, it helps to retrain the body back into doing the process itself. For centuries man has existed in the main on protein and fat with some or even in some places very little carbs and suddenly we are consuming the stuff all-day, every-day! No wonder unstable Blood Sugar is such a problem - trouble is that it is ignored in the early stages when we have the chance to do something about it!

[rinne]

Thanks for the informative post Ali.

I read something recently connecting the increase in diabetes to mercury exposure.

[Julie anne]

i know sometimes you just have to let your body heal before you go on carbs and other things.

when i was younger my mom put me slowly back on everything, not at one time. eating multi vitamins and calcium helps a lot.

[AliB]

Hi Julie-Anne. You are so right about carbs often preventing healing. That is what I have come to realise.

Rinne - you may well be right about Mercury - even if it doesn't cause it, it undoubtedly contributes in some way. At the end of the day, having particles of the second most toxic metal known to man in your mouth can't be particularly beneficial!

[pele]

It is nice to see the thread picking up again.

Ali--maybe you can reverse type II diabetes on this diet.

On another topic--I have had a very stressful two weeks, and without going into detail about my personal life, I will say that the stress hit me in the gut. I lost weight, I had stomach pain, and my poops looked like something from the pre-gluten-free era. As soon as the stress was alieviated, very suddenly on Monday, things returned to normal. I wondered about the relationship between our emotional states and health. Do some people get headaches or chest pains from stress, while those of us on the SCD get leaky gut symptoms? And does stress cause ill health, or does ill health give rise to negative emotions? Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

[rinne]

....

Rinne - you may well be right about Mercury - even if it doesn't cause it, it undoubtedly contributes in some way. At the end of the day, having particles of the second most toxic metal known to man in your mouth can't be particularly beneficial!

I should go look for the article but I am sleepy right this moment, it was talking not only about our fillings but just environmental exposure everywhere.

We have created a toxic environment for ourselves.

......

We are slowly destroying our species. If we go extinct, I have no doubt it will be by our own hand.

.....

I maintain that we are generally not a very bright species.

...... I wondered about the relationship between our emotional states and health. Do some people get headaches or chest pains from stress, while those of us on the SCD get leaky gut symptoms? And does stress cause ill health, or does ill health give rise to negative emotions? Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

I think it is critical, Dr.Klinghardt maintains that if you are holding onto negative feelings you won't release the toxicity, literally. He describes people not detoxing mercury because of that. As to what comes first? It's a tangle.

[AliB]

Chicken or egg - hmm, well maybe the chicken is more toxic than the egg!

Pells, sorry to hear about your stressful situation. I hope things resolve ok for you.

I am pretty laid-back and don't normally tend to worry or stress - maybe its there subconsciously but I am not aware of it. Hasn't stopped me getting Leaky Gut, a toxic body, Candida infestations, weight issues, Carb intolerance and diabetes, though!

I am sure that if I was REALLY disciplined on the diet and ate a lot more raw food I would be able to keep the blood sugar in normal range - I know that because I have done it, but I am struggling to keep the carbs at bay at the moment and my control is not very good.

Time was that I could eat low-carb and do well, but my insulin-resistance and carb 'indigestion' is so bad now that even the slightest bit of 'bad' carbs whops my blood sugar up. I do think that, as Michael Eades states in his book, it is possible to 're-train' the receptor cells by keeping the blood sugar in normal range all the time. As they get used to that situation they may well become more sensitive - it is just getting that control that is so hard.

the worst time is when I am hungry and have nothing prepared. Then I am more inclined to eat things that muck it all up. As good as I am about knowing what I should be doing, I am not very organised at doing it!

I am being confined to barracks. Apparently I am posting too many comments about the SCD so, as I just can't keep it to myself I will have to limit my discussions about it to this thread for the moment.

[rinne]

....

I am being confined to barracks. Apparently I am posting too many comments about the SCD so, as I just can't keep it to myself I will have to limit my discussions about it to this thread for the moment.

I have wondered about this. I wish I could remember where I read that one third of celiacs do not improve with only a gluten free diet, has anyone else seen this?

I think that if this is the case then there is an opportunity to take advantage of that by marketing SCD products. I suspect that as people turn to the SCD there will be a growing demand for a variety of goods. Not everyone will make things from scratch and you can make delicious products with almond flour, far superior to rice/amaranth/potato flours, just my opinion.

It saddens me to think that people would work so hard to be well and be so strict with their diets yet see no improvement when improvement is at hand.

I have been on the SCD since the beginning of December and have had some relief of my symptoms, primarily C, suddenly I no longer am and this has been a life long issue. That alone is enough to convince me that I am on the right track with this diet. I have realized though that I can't eat cheese or yogurt just yet, particularly moldy cheeses. I got into the cambazola about a week ago and should have known I was in trouble when I started devouring it. C came back and I realized I would have to back off on it for the time being. Perhaps a little goat yogurt.

Ali, I have very much appreciated your posts.

[rinne]

Found it.

From "Everyday grain-free Gourmet" by Jodi Bager and Jenny Lass:

"The gluten free diet has another big problem. Some people with celiac disease didn't respond to it at all. Although the small number of children who were documented in the 1952 Lancet article improved when they stopped eating gluten, later studies showed that some celiac

were "refractory" - in other words, they continued to get sick despite following a gluten-free diet. Researchers found that many seemingly refractory patients got better after eliminating hidden sources of gluten in their food. However, a study conducted by doctors at the Mayo clinic and published in 2002 in the American Journal of Gastroenterology revealed that 18% of their refractory celiac patients were completely unresponsive to the gluten free diet."

So, even though a diet existed that addressed this and Dr. Haas had published a book about it the Mayo Clinic knew nothing of it.

It reminds of a radio program I listened to today talking about cell phones and the dangers to children, many European countries are placing restrictions on how they can be used. Here in Canada we are reassured they are safe and yet they have documentation showing the radiation sinking much deeper into a child's brain because it is not as dense as an adult. Further all the safety tests were done on men and women have smaller heads so the radiation is penetrating deeper for women too. The scientists who have spoken up have lost their funding.

Ah, the wonders of our capitalist economy.

[pele]

I wish I could remember where I read that one third of celiacs do not improve with only a gluten free diet, has anyone else seen this?

Maybe right here on celiac.com

https://www.celiac.com/articles/21688/1/Aty...ents/Page1.html

[rinne]

Thanks Pele, I think we cross posted, I went and found a link too.

From the link you posted:

With increasing frequency, doctors worldwide are finding persistent villous atrophy in celiac patients who are following a gluten-free diet. Results of a study published recently in the Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology indicate that persistent intestinal villous atrophy in celiac disease patients on a gluten-free diet is associated with gastrointestinal symptoms considered 'atypical' for celiac disease and which are different from those present at the original celiac disease diagnosis.

So, if we diagnose celiac as applying only to those who are strictly gluten-intolerant then we can diagnose another sub-set of celiacs with atypical symptoms who don't heal. What is wrong with this picture? Especially if you consider that children put on the SCD healed and went on to live ordinary wheat eating lives.

[Gentleheart]

I have toyed with this diet more than once. But can a person who can't have any dairy, eggs, soy or almonds survive on it? It seems like it would be pretty restrictive and hard to follow under these circumstances.

P.S. Could someone please give me a quick rundown of the rules of the diet again. I have the book, but it's packed away. Thanks!

[GermanMia]

Actually the first idea of "celiac disease" was that it is an intolerance against every kind of starches, not only gluten. Only further research found out that gluten was one thing that caused symptoms of celiac disease and this became the standard diagnosis of celiac disease: Gluten intolerance. Science tends to stick to simple explanations...

Gentleheart, you could have a look at the btvc-site.

breakingtheviciouscycle.info/

[rinne]

Actually the first idea of "celiac disease" was that it is an intolerance against every kind of starches, not only gluten. Only further research found out that gluten was one thing that caused symptoms of celiac disease and this became the standard diagnosis of celiac disease: Gluten intolerance. Science tends to stick to simple explanations...

.....

That may be true for 82% of celiacs but for the other 18% not true at all, according to the study above.

I've read that it was a Willem Dicke who observed that during the flour shortages of the second world war children with celiac improved, that was in 1950 and that by 1952 this theory was being promoted as the answer to celiac. That doesn't sound like a lot of research to me.

Now it may be that of the 18% who don't get well by avoiding gluten some may not get well on the SCD either, but I really think that information needs to be out there. I remember reading about refractory sprue and feeling so sad to think someone would never heal and now it makes total sense to me, of course they wouldn't heal because they were still being injured.

[rinne]

I have toyed with this diet more than once. But can a person who can't have any dairy, eggs, soy or almonds survive on it? It seems like it would be pretty restrictive and hard to follow under these circumstances.

That would make it more challenging but still very doable if you can have other nuts.

I don't eat soy and have found that, at this point, I can't eat dairy, it is something I will keep challenging periodically.

Not eating eggs would make it difficult to do any baking, can you tolerate any egg at all? I know some can have a little in baked goods but can't eat just eggs.

[AliB]

I have toyed with this diet more than once. But can a person who can't have any dairy, eggs, soy or almonds survive on it? It seems like it would be pretty restrictive and hard to follow under these circumstances.

Hi Gentleheart - welcome to the thread.

I couldn't have dairy, tolerate eggs or nuts and soy when I first started the diet. Within a few weeks I was able to eat eggs as long as they were well cooked and am ok with them now in any form. Nuts have gradually become easier to digest. I can now cope with a little dairy although too much gives me C, and soy I prefer to avoid because of the way it is processed and could keep damage going.

If you start with the intro part of the diet and gradually add in foods you may find after a few weeks as your gut starts to heal that you are able to add eggs and maybe even a little SCD 'legal' dairy back in. The thing is not to do it too fast or you may be having foods that your gut really can't cope with and that could inhibit the healing process. We are often impatient to be able to get back to a more 'normal' diet, but it is that normal diet that has contributed to the damage in the first place. Personally I don't want to go back there again.

If we really analyse the many different and varied diets around the earth, what we can only conclude is that it is the 'Western' diet that is out of balance. Whilst some cultures may exist on a high carb diet - it is usually from foods made with natural unprocessed sources of carbohydrate like pulses and corn and they are usually created using traditional methods of preparation and cooking, many others exist on mainly fat and protein with very little carbs. Some cultures have no dairy products and others little other than perhaps fermented in the form of yogurt or kefir. Other cultures exist mainly on fruit and vegetables with fish as their staple protein and a little carb in the form of cassava or breadfruit.

What they all have in common that we don't is that their food sources are all natural and unprocessed. They do not have chemicals or additives added to the food. It has no need for any fortification as it is already wholesome and nutrient-rich. They all exist very well on their cultural diets and generally do not seem to suffer the diseases that are endemic in the Westernised nations.

This beautiful planet contains everything we need for sustenance in huge abundance. We have been more than well provided for. I read somewhere that it is estimated there may be at least 20,000 different types of apple (different sources quote different amounts - but in any case we are talking thousands rather than 10's or even 100's!). On the Supermarket shelf you will find maybe four or five. We have been limited in our choice for no other reason than Commercial entities.

Whilst we may have to prepare and nurture some of our food there is also an abundance that just grows with no help at all - berries are one provision. Depending on where you live, from the coldest to the warmest countries they are available. Wild blackberries, cowberries, whortleberries, whinberries, blueberries, raspberries, lingonberries, tayberries, elderberries, strawberries, loganberries, boysenberries, gooseberries, huckleberries - the list is just endless!

My mouth is watering and I am only thinking about them! Eaten fresh and raw they provide enzymes, vitamins, minerals and trace elements in abundance - what mainly happens in the Western diet is that they are cooked until they are mush, drowned in sugar and thickener and a heap of pastry is wrapped around them. They are sold as fruit pies and are consumed by the ton. Virtually any benefit from the fruit as a beneficial food would have been completely destroyed and in many cases they are turned into a negative food that drains the body of valuable nutrients. I watched a program the other night about food. Apparently most 'value' apple pies only contain 10% apple. Even the more expensive ones are likely to contain no more than 20%. How do they have the nerve to call it an apple pie???? Many 'fruit' products actually contain no real fruit at all but are just full of chemical flavourings.

To my mind it is the plastering everything with processed wheat and sugar and chemicals that makes the diet restrictive. Peoples' diets are restricted to those foods that give them a gluten fix, or a sugar fix or a dairy fix! If all those foods were wiped off the shelves tomorrow and replaced with REAL food most people would be thrown into a terrible panic. They wouldn't know what to do with it! I don't know about you, but being on the SCD has made me more resourceful and creative.

We are so brainwashed into believing that unless we get dairy we will be deficient in calcium for instance, but apparently there is as much calcium in a portion of broccoli as in a glass of milk and it is also apparently in a more available form. Fruits and vegetables provide most of the vitamins and minerals we need, meat, fish and poultry the amino acids and many other minerals and vitamins. What we lose from some foods can be made up by others as long as we vary our diet within the limits of the 'legal' foods. With some, and as I found, the damage is so bad that they sometimes have to limit even some legal foods for a while but eventually can usually manage to tolerate them ok.

[AliB]

A few interesting links -

Open Original Shared Link

Open Original Shared Link

and this one - it's a bit of a tome but well worth the read. Kind of sums up why we (and probably most people) are better off following the SCD or similar low-carb Paleo-type diet.

Open Original Shared Link

[rinne]

Thanks for the links, very interesting, particularly the third one as it is clear a tremendous amount of research has gone into it, and all to find out that eating simply leads to a healthier life.

Well, the second one was very interesting too, living in Canada I am very aware of the high rate of diabetes within the First Nation's community. And the first one......

There is a vet who has written extensively about these issues, he raises the issue of soy and how it has been introduced, he suggests it will lead to problems. I can't recall his name right now, does this ring a bell lfor anyone?

[Gentleheart]

My intolerances to the major proteins of dairy, eggs, soy and gluten were confirmed by 3 different labs using 3 different testing styles. I was told directly by two of the labs that they were likely permanent genetically-supported intolerances. I haven't been given the impression by them that any of these are reversible. I do, however, also have several ELISA foods that I may be able to reverse by rotation once the gut heals. But they aren't nearly as missed as these useful protein foods.

I cannot seem to add something back in at a later date as an experiment because my symptoms are delayed and so difficult to pinpoint. If I ever did actually get beyond my health issues, I'm afraid I would be highly reluctant to do ANYTHING to disrupt it, no matter how much I dearly miss those foods. I would never wish for instantaneous D, but there are times when it would sure come in handy for knowing exactly when you have been glutened.

I think the SCD or Paleo diets probably hold promise for me, but without being able to use many of their allowable foods, it will also be considerably more limiting.

Gluten is a given, but does anyone else successfully use these diet plans without the equally useful proteins of dairy and eggs in particular?