 Important to our understanding and prevention for global increasing inflammatory bowel disease, we know that dietary fiber appears to reduce risk, whereas dietary fat, animal protein, and sugar may increase risk. Despite the recognition of the westernization of lifestyles, a major driver of the growing incidence of inflammatory bowel disease, no countermeasures against such lifestyle changes have been recommended except that patients with chronic disease shouldn't smoke. Look, we know consuming whole plant-based foods is synonymous with an anti-inflammatory diet. Here's a list of foods with inflammatory effects. Here's a list of foods with anti-inflammatory effects. So how about putting a plant-based diet to the test? Just cutting down on red and processed meat didn't work. What about cutting down on all meat? A 25-year-old guy diagnosed with Crohn's disease but failed to enter clinical remission despite standard medical therapy. But after switching to a diet based exclusively on grains, legumes, like beans, puppies, chickpeas, and other vegetables and fruits, he entered clinical remission without the need for medication and showed no signs of Crohn's disease unfollowed colonoscopy. It's worth delving into some of the details. The conventional treatment they started him on is infliximab, sold as Remicade, which can cause a stroke. It may increase your chances of getting lymphoma and other cancers, but it's a bargain for only $35,000 a year, and it may not even work in 35 to 40% of patients, and that seemed to be the case here. So they upped the dose after 37 weeks and still suffering after two years on the drug until he tried completely eliminating animal products and processed foods from his diet, finally experiencing a complete resolution of his symptoms. Prior to this, his diet had been a typical American diet, but having experienced complete clinical remission for the first time since his diagnosis, he decided to switch to a whole-food, plant-based diet permanently, severely reducing intake of processed food and limiting animal products to one serving or less per week. And whenever his diet started to slip, symptoms started coming back, but he could always wipe them out by eating healthier. After six months of implementing these changes in diet and lifestyle, including stress relief and exercise, a follow-up demonstrated a complete mucosal healing of the gut lining with no visible evidence of Crohn's disease. We know a diet consisting of whole grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables has shown to be helpful in the prevention and treatment of heart disease, obesity, diabetes, hypertension, gallbladder disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and many cancers. Although further research has required, this case report suggests that Crohn's disease might be added to this list of conditions, but that further research has already been done. About 20 patients with Crohn's disease were placed on a semi-vegetarian diet, meaning no more than a half serving of fish once a week and a half serving of meat once every two weeks. And achieved 100% remission rate at one year and 90% at two years. Some strayed from the diet, though. Let's see what happened to them. After a year, half had relapsed, and a year or two, only 20% remained in remission. But those that stuck with it had remarkable success. It was a small study with no formal control group, but represents the best reported result in Crohn's relapse prevention published in the medical literature to date. Nowadays, Crohn's patients are often treated with so-called biologic drugs, expensive, injected antibodies, that suppress your immune system and have effectively induced and maintained remission in Crohn's disease, but not in everyone. Current remission rate in Crohn's with early use of Remicade 64%. So 30 to 40% of patients are likely to experience a disabling disease course even after treatment. So what about adding a plant-based diet? Remission rates jumped up to 100% for those who didn't have to drop out due to drug side effects. Even if you exclude the milder cases, 100% of those with serious, even severe, fulminant disease achieved remission. But if you look at gold standard systematic reviews, they conclude that the effects of dietary interventions on inflammatory bowel diseases, Crohn's disease, and ulcerative glyce, are uncertain. This is because only randomized controlled trials were considered totally understandable, as that's the most rigorous study design. Nevertheless, people with inflammatory bowel disease deserve advice based on the best available evidence, rather than no advice at all. And switching to a plant-based diet has been shown to achieve far better outcomes than those reported on conventional treatments in both active and quiescent stages in both Crohn's and ulcerative colitis. For example, here's one-year remission rates in Crohn's disease, 100% compared to biodesonide, an immunosuppressant corticosteroid drug, a half-elemental diet, meaning like at-home tube phoenix, the $35,000-a-year remiccate, or the $75,000-a-year drug Humira, safe for cheaper and more effective, maybe we should recommend plant-based diets for inflammatory bowel disease. It would seem clear that treatment based on treating the cause of the disease is optimal. Spreading the word about healthier diets could help halt the scourge of inflammatory bowel, but how are people going to hear about this amazing research without some kind of public education campaign? That's what nutritionfacts.org is all about.