Dear UC’ers of the world and all other concerned family/friends,
I received an email a few days ago from one of you asking what the heck was going on with the SCD study that is taking place right now at Rush Medical Center near Chicago, IL. Crazy how times flies, but I originally posted on this study back in January of 2011 (read the post here if you like) and since then, I’ve mailed my poop 3 times to Rush Med Center for “inspection/ DNA sequencing etc… Thanks scientists for doing the dirty work out there in Chi town!
Real quick, for anyone new here, the study is looking at the bacteria within stool samples of both Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis patients who follow the Specific Carbohydrate Diet and comparing stool samples to other Crohn’s and UC’ers who do not follow this diet.
Like I said, I’ve mailed quite a bit of my poop to them, and in a response I received today by one of the lead scientists, I am now finished through with their study. I was thinking I’d be sending them another round soon, but nope, I’m all through with my sample donations. What is happening now though, is they are still working through the data processing, and continuing their poop collections from other participants out there.(Some of the participants are also readers and users of this site, so big props to you all!!) And, the group of scientists/doctors is in the process of obtaining additional financial grants/funding from the NIH (National Institute of Health) As you might imagine, all this research isn’t cheap and applying for grants and funding is often just as time consuming as the scientific stuff.
Not much has been shared in terms of early data, but there was an email that I received not too long ago with some of the news regarding the EARLY data from the study. I just received permission to publish the PDF file for any of you to look through, and if you are interested in learning more about this, give them a read, and post some comments below on your thoughts or questions. I think we have a chance to spark a neat discussion from all this. I’m pretty darn excited to say the least.
SCD Diet Clinical Study abstract Rush Medical Center page1
The second file simply states the following:
“Conclusions: This pilot study suggests UC patients on SCD have a differing microbiome compared to controls. Further studies with next generation sequencing are warranted to define the changes in the microbiome as a results of SCD”
Bottomline:
Results are in the early days, and more work is needed. I do know that the study is still VERY MUCH IN NEED of “control” group patients to send some poop in the mail. That means that for people who are not using the SCD diet, RUSH medical center needs your help. They have plenty of people using the diet, but not enough people who aren’t. If you are interested you can go and pull up this PDF file and contact the information listed:
https://www.ihaveuc.com/ulcerative-colitis/SCD-diet-research-study-colitis-crohns.pdf
Thanks to all of you again who are actively involved with this study, I know it’s sometimes a pain to be pooping in the little plastic tray and bagging it up in the Fed Ex drop bag and getting it out the door, but you’re doing something good, and your efforts are going to help out alot of people move closer to figuring this disease out. Thanks also to the UC’er who wrote to me earlier asking for an update.
When further word comes in, I’ll definitely try to keep you all posted and updated.
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-Adam
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I’d love to know your thoughts on this next question, so feel free to take the poll below:
I started site shortly after being diagnosed in October of 2008 with severe pancolitis (when my whole colon was inflamed).
For me, it was a very rough start with severe symptoms. Getting bounced from medication to medication was not easy or too helpful. But, I did meet another UC’er, changes several parts of my diet, and of course the rest is history.
Leave a comment, ask a question, take advantage of our past experiences here, use the search boxes, they are your friends to0:)
I’ve written 2 different ulcerative colitis ebooks, you can check them out here.
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