Diet and Farming Practices

My son has had Ulcerative Colitis for the past 7 years and is in flare up at the moment.  We live in England near London and we are both very fed up with the disease.

I do not want to say too much about my son as he is a member of this site and I feel it is up to him to share his story but I would be very interested to know other people’s thoughts on the following

– I have a wheat intolerance but can manage spelt, I was talking to a farmer and he explained that the wheat grain used nowadays is very different to how it was 50 years ago, spelt is the original grain and has a much more open molecular structure. The grain nowadays is quite tight making it much more disease resistant and quicker growing.  Does anybody else feel that these changes in farming practices are contributing to people developing UC?

– I have the impression that UC is a a fairly recent phenomenon, is that accurate or is it just that we have been made aware of it due to my sons illness?

– We saw his specialist recently and brought up the subject of diet and he was adamant that it wasn’t relevant and strongly advised against him restricting it in any way as he is loosing a lot of weight and needs as much nutrition as possible. He then said that beer etc was to be avoided because it causes fermentation in the gut, is this not a contradiction ? Surely that implies that diet is important, what does anybody else think?

– Lastly it’s all so gloomy, it seems its meds, a continual downward spiral into ever stronger meds with the possibility of surgery and erectile dysfunction, it is very depressing, the medical profession never offer anything positive, it makes both of us feel powerless and angry.

I work as a cook and have always made homemade food so he wasn’t brought up on junk food so if diet does play a part it must be something to do with the way it’s produced. Does anyone have an idea of where its come from.

Thank you,

A “worried mum“