Could the Carnivore Diet Revolutionize Inflammatory Bowel Disease Treatment?

New Paper on Carnivore Diet for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases

This morning, my colleague Professor Adria Soto Mota MD PhD and I published a paper entitled, “Carnivore–ketogenic diet for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease: a case series of 10 patients.”

The patients in this series all had biopsy confirmed diagnoses of ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease that were responsive to treatment with a ketogenic, mostly carnivore, diets. Clinical improvement was measured with the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Questionnaire (IBDQ), that scores symptoms across 4 domains with higher scores being better, a maximum possible score of 224 indicating “perfect” clinical control.

Clinical improvements were universal, with clinical improvement scores ranging between 72 and 165 points on the IBDQ, and mean score on their carnivore-ketogenic diet being an impressive 216/224.

For more, check out the video breakdown, here:

While you can get my conclusions from the video above, here I wanted to highlight the “Patient Perspectives” (quotes) from each of the 10 patients.

Patient Quotes

Patient 1: A keto-carnivore diet let me forget that I have Crohn’s. No drugs, no surgery... The decades that I dealt with Crohn’s are like another lifetime.

Patient 2: I’m healthy. I cured myself of colitis with lifestyle when medications were not doing enough. My doctor clearly does not seem fully informed with what’s going on in my body and with my lipids, so I do not feel comfortable taking any medications unless he can convince me why I should take them.

Patient 3: Within days my bowel movement changed from loose to normal! And within 2 weeks, I had more energy than I did the past 10 years. When I last spoke with my doctor he said that if I’m feeling incredible he does not want to put me on the medication. And that was so encouraging! Especially since he has been really skeptical of the diet.

Patient 4: On the carnivore diet, I feel better than I did when I was a 20-year- old college football player. I’m physically the best I’ve ever been at a lean 170 lbs and can bench 10 reps of 225 lbs. My mental clarity is freakin’ awesome! With the lifestyle, I have not had to worry about my colitis for 6 years.

Patient 5: I cured my ulcerative colitis with a ketogenic carnivore diet. I want to share my story in case it can help people. I have friends with UC who know how well I’m doing and, honestly, I do not understand why they do not give it a try. What is there to lose?

Patient 6: Carnivore seems limiting at first, but it’s actually freeing.

Patient 7: The carnivore diet requires me to restrict what I eat but it’s given me health that I never thought I could have. Worth it. I cannot believe that we are still telling patients that their diet does not really matter with respect to IBD. It’s absolutely bonkers!

Patient 8: I feel better than at any point in my life, work out 6 days a week, require no medication, and experience more energy on a day-to-day basis than at any point in my life that I can remember. My health transformation has truly been a miracle.

Patient 9: A ketogenic diet changed my life course. It resurrected my future when I thought I had none. I’ve dabbled with different forms of ketogenic diet, including carnivore, and continue to do so out of personal interest; but anytime I exit ketosis for a prolonged period, my symptoms return. If I eat this way for the rest of my life, that’s fine by me. No starch or sweet is worth not having bloody diarrhea a dozen times per day.

Patient 10: My carnivore-ketogenic diet healed it all! After over 20 years, I’m disease and medication free! I was told that diet could not help me, but I guarantee you it helped. I lived it. I will never buy another candy bar again. And that’s something because I love sweets, but not as much as I love feeling this way.

How you can help

Navigate to the paper itself by clicking HERE.

Copy the url <https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2024.1467475/full> and post it in an original Tweet or Quote Retweet to my Announcement, HERE.

Share whatever you want to share: Your Thoughts, Your Favorite Patient Quote, Your Questions.

Spreading the word creates bottom-up social pressure to drive more interest and more investment in research on this and related topics.