Patients Perceive Clinical Benefit with the Specific Carbohydrate Diet for Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Abstract

The SCD is utilized by many patients as a primary and adjunct therapy for IBD. Most patients perceive clinical benefit to use of the SCD.

The Specific Carbohydrate Diet in the Treatment of Crohn’s Disease: A Systematic Review

“…There were no date restrictions placed on the databases that were searched. The last date searched was October 21,2016. Search terms included the following: Specific Carbohydrate Diet, Crohn's disease, inflammatory bowel disease, and monosaccharides.…”

“…Suskind, et al [21] Case series -An internet survey was used to collect information from patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease who were following the SCD. -44% of subjects were following the SCD as sole treatment.…”

“…An additional strength of the included research is the detail in which all researchers reported treatment exposures, as well as the fact that potential confounders such as concomitant medication use were acknowledged and commented upon. Additionally, many of the studies used validated methods for both collecting data and comparing outcomes [13,15,16,[19][20][21]23] . Finally, one study utilized a control group, lending strength to the findings [15] .…”

“…Suskind et al [21] recently published a larger survey of patients with inflammatory bowel disease that examined changes in reported symptoms, complications, and healthcare experiences before and after starting the SCD. The study included 188 participants with CD; the authors did not distinguish between respondents with CD and those with ulcerative colitis when they reported results.…”

“…One of the included studies [20] used a survey questionnaire in its design in addition to reporting on a case study; an additional two studies [13,21] also gathered information by means of surveys. Responses to these surveys were for the most part subjective in nature; although one study did use a validated questionnaire to assess symptom severity, and also verified the diagnosis of CD for all included participants [13] .…”