This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
VIDEO: Trial to test dietary interventions for Crohn’s
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
In this exclusive video, James Lewis, MD, MSCE, associate director of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center at Penn Medicine, and Andrea Meyer, an advocate for patients with Crohn’s disease, discuss an ongoing trial to test effectiveness of two diets in treating Crohn’s disease.
Known as DINE-CD, the trial will compare the Mediterranean diet and the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) and determine which is better at reducing symptoms and inflammation in patients with mildly-to-moderately active CD.
“We think that this trial will provide information that will be incredibly valuable to patients and physicians,” Lewis told Healio Gastroenterology and Liver Disease. “Particularly that when the patient shows up at their physician’s office and asks ‘Doc, what should I be eating,’ we’ll be able to give them an answer based on science rather than just shaking our hands and saying, ‘I’m not really sure. Try whatever makes you feel better.”
Lewis said patients and even some doctors might not be familiar with the SCD, but evidence has already shown that it might be effective in treating a number of immune mediated diseases.
Meyer, who has had CD for 18 years, became an advocate about 10 years ago, and has been working to help strengthen patient-doctor partnerships. She hopes more patients with CD will become active in the management of their disease.
“What drives me to get involved is to set an example for other patients to get involved,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be to this degree. I encourage all patients to take an active role in your care and to partner with your doctors. I would hope that doctors are open to seeing this more as a partnership, and I know patients are taking a more active role in that as well.”
Disclosures: Lewis reports financial ties to Nestle Health Science.