• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Alyssa Luck

Alyssa Luck

  • About Me
  • Deep Dives
  • The IBD Index
  • Functional Orthodontics
  • YouTube
  • Instagram
  • Contact Me
  • Show Search
Hide Search

The IBD Index

A continually growing compilation of every single bit of information outside the Standard of Care that could conceivably be helpful for conquering ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease

Food | Microbiome | Mind-Body | Supplements | Other | Environment | Special Topics

Important note: Just because something is on this page does not mean that I endorse it, or that it’s safe for everyone. There are even things on this page that I personally have tried and had a bad experience with. But if an approach is reasonably popular and I think it’s not advisable, I’d much rather you learn about it here where I can give some context, warnings, and disclaimers, rather than have you sucked into one of the dogmatic cult-like crevices of the internet where nuance goes to die.

My role here is to give you as much information as possible in an organized and objective way. YOUR role is to do your due diligence, discuss with your healthcare provider(s)*, and decide the best course of action for you.

If you don’t see something here that you think should be included, tell me!

If you see a post title or topic listed with no hyperlink, that probably means I’m working on it and/or plan to create a page for it in the future. In the meantime – Google it!

Food

On the left, you’ll find a list of diets. Some are designed specifically for IBD; others are not. Some could be a good choice for most people, others for almost nobody, but none of them will be suitable for everyone.

On the right, you’ll find a collection of topics related to nutrition, including special reports on particular nutrients that have increased relevance (and sometimes controversy) in IBD patients.

Therapeutic Diets

  • Autoimmune Protocol (AIP)
  • Bean Protocol
  • Carnivore
  • Elemental Diet
  • GAPS
  • Gluten-Free
  • Groningen Anti-Inflammatory Diet
  • IBD Anti-Inflammatory Diet (IBD‑AID)
  • Ketogenic
  • Low-FODMAP
  • Paleo
  • Pro-Metabolic (Ray Peat)
  • Semi-Vegetarian/Plant-Based (used in Japanese hospitals for IBD)
  • Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD)
  • Vegan
  • Very Low Fat (Swank diet)
  • Vitamin A Detox

Nutrition

  • Nutrition for IBD
  • Iron
  • Omega-3 Fatty Acids
  • Vitamin D

Microbiome

Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) and IBD
Fecal Microbiota Transplant (FMT) for IBD

Probiotics

  • Akkermansia muciniphila
  • Saccharomyces boulardii
  • VSL #3 / Visbiome
  • E. coli Nissle 1917
  • Soil Based Organisms
  • Probiotic Enemas

Fiber & Prebiotics

  • Fructooligosaccharides (FOS)
  • Galactooligosaccharides (GOS)
  • Polyphenols
  • Psyllium husk
  • Resistant starch
  • Sunfiber

Mind-Body and Nervous System

The Science Behind Energy Medicine (post in progress!)

  • Brain Retraining (DNRS, Lightning Process, etc)
  • Hypnotherapy
  • Meditation and Mindfulness (MBSR, etc)
  • Qigong
  • Vagus Nerve Stimulation

Supplements

  • Aloe Vera
  • Boswellia (frankincense)
  • Butyrate (oral supplement, enema)
  • Collagen/Bone Broth
  • Exogenous Ketones
  • Glutathione (and precursors)
  • IV Therapy (micronutrients, amino acids, glutathione, NAD+, etc)
  • L-Glutamine
  • Lactoferrin/Colostrum
  • MCT Oil
  • Monolaurin
  • Turmeric (curcumin)
  • Vitamin E Enemas

Other Therapies

  • Acupuncture
  • Buteyko Breathing
  • Craniosacral Therapy
  • Exercise/Physical Therapy
  • Helminth Therapy
  • Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT)
  • Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN)
  • Lymph Support
  • Pulsed Electromagnetic Field (PEMF)
  • Red Light
  • Reiki
  • Rolfing
  • Sauna
  • Tapping/Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)

Environment

Circadian Rhythm Optimization (including sleep hygiene, light spectrum optimization, CAR optimization, etc)
Environmental Toxin Awareness (personal care products, household products, building and furnishing materials, EMFs, pesticides and herbicides, heavy metals, etc)

Special Topics

Mouse Models of Ulcerative Colitis: What Can They Really Tell Us?

*Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, and the information on this website is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Primary Sidebar

 

Hi! I’m Alyssa. I like thunderstorms and cats, hate wearing shoes, and enjoy devising extensive research projects for myself in my free time. This is me in Bali with a monkey on my shoulder. And this is my blog, where I muse about health-related topics and document my relentless self-guinea pigging. If you want to know more about me, click here!

alyssa.luck

alyssa.luck
Photo dump from the last year. Thanks to everyone Photo dump from the last year. Thanks to everyone who made 28 the best yet - excited for 29🥰

(PS. In case anyone wants to know what it’s like in my head, I was going to write something like “year 28” or “my 28th year” but then I realized that the year between your 28th and 29th birthdays is not your 28th year of life, it’s your 29th year. I am turning 29 because I have been alive for 29 years. So then I had a whole thing about how to word it without being inaccurate and ended up going with what you see above which is vague and weird but the point is it was a good year and I love all the people in my life dearly)
Biology of Belief (2005) was written by Bruce Lipt Biology of Belief (2005) was written by Bruce Lipton, who earned a PhD in developmental biology in 1971 and was an anatomy professor and academic researcher in the 70s and 80s. Despite the book's presentation and Lipton's background, this is not a science book. It is an exposition of an ideology, supported by haphazard and poorly contextualized nuggets of evidence, rhetorical leaps, and a mind-boggling overuse of analogies. 

The book largely failed to deliver on its promised content. What it does is argue for the primacy of the environment over DNA in controlling life; propose that the cell membrane rather than the nucleus is the "brain" of the cell; invoke quantum physics to explain why modern medicine fails; explain that our behavior is largely controlled by our subconscious mind; inform parents that they therefore have a great deal of control over the destiny of their children; and conclude that humans must become nonviolent protectors of the environment and of humanity because Everything Is Connected.

It’s not that these points aren’t relevant to the topic at hand - they are. But they were not connected in a coherent way that would explain how “belief” actually works (like…biologically), and the treatment of scientific concepts throughout was careless, or perhaps disingenuous.

I think he's correct about many things, some of them being common knowledge. For instance, the "new" science of epigenetics is now old news, as is the critical role of parenting and early environment in shaping a child’s future. But however important these and attendant concepts may be, the book did not do a good job explaining, supporting, or connecting them. 

As far as practical guidance, he refers the reader to a list of resources on his website, which is fine, but I expected some scientific insight into how/why those modalities work. None was given. 

On the plus side, the book was quite thought-provoking, and I came away with loads of references and topics to follow up on. My favorite line? "There cannot be exceptions to a theory; exceptions simply mean that a theory is not fully correct."
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (section 382) Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (section 382), as quoted in the introduction to Thus Spoke Zarathustra because I like the translation better.
This paper totally changed the way I think about e This paper totally changed the way I think about early nervous system development and the relationship between physiology and sociality. 

The authors propose that newborn babies are not inherently social, and have just one goal in life: physiological homeostasis. I.e. staying alive. This means nutrients, warmth, and regulation of breath and heart rate, i.e. autonomic arousal (it’s well-accepted that newborns sync their breathing and heart rate with caregivers through skin to skin contact). 

All these things are traditionally provided by a loving caregiver. So what the baby experiences during the first weeks of life, over and over, is a shift from physiological perturbation to homeostasis (a highly rewarding event inherently) REPEATEDLY PAIRED with things like the sound of a caregiver’s voice and seeing their face. Thus, over time, the face/voice stimuli become rewarding as well. 

The authors argue that THIS is the beginning of humans’ wiring for sociality, and may explain why loving social interactions can have such a profound regulating effect on physiology throughout life: because the brain was trained for it at an early age. 

This framework holds all kinds of fascinating implications for what happens if that initial “training” isn’t so ideal. What if the return to nutritional homeostasis via feeding is paired with negative expressions and vocalizations rather than loving ones, perhaps as could occur with PPD? What happens if the caregiver has poor autonomic regulation, such that social stimuli become paired with cardiorespiratory overexcitement in the baby? Could that have potential for influencing later introversion vs extroversion? (Because if social interaction is paired with autonomic overexcitement, that could lead to social interaction literally being more energetically draining, which is what introverts experience. Thoughts?)

For my energy metabolism enthusiasts: Table 1 in the paper draws a link between metabolic rate and sociality across species. Swipe for a screenshot. 

Anyway, check out the paper! It’s free, just google “growing a social brain pdf.”
I’ll be under general anesthesia in a couple day I’ll be under general anesthesia in a couple days to have two tooth implants placed, and I think I’ll take the opportunity to have a little heart-to-heart with my subconscious mind. A bit of medically-assisted self-hypnosis, if you will. 

I randomly stumbled upon these papers a couple months ago - an RCT showing reduced post-op pain in patients who listened to recorded positive messages while under general anesthesia, plus a post-hoc analysis of the same data that found reduced post-op nausea and vomiting in a subset of high-risk patients. 

The full review paper from the first slide is unfortunately in German, but it has long been recognized that even when unconscious, the patient is listening (for better or for worse). 

It boggles my mind that it isn’t standard of care to have patients listen to recordings like this while under sedation, considering that almost nothing could be easier, safer, or cheaper, and we have at least some evidence of significant efficacy. I mean c’mon, what more could you want from an intervention? 

(Yeah, I know. Profit. If anyone still thinks that our medical system operates with patient well-being as the foremost goal, you’re deluding yourself.)

“There should be a fundamental change in the way patients are treated in the operating room and intensive care unit, and background noise and careless conversations should be eliminated.”

“Perhaps it is now time to finally heed this call and to use communication with unconscious patients that goes beyond the most necessary announcement of interventions and is therapeutically effective through positive suggestions. When in doubt, assume that the patient is listening.”
If you've seen "vagus nerve exercises" that have y If you've seen "vagus nerve exercises" that have you moving your eyes or tilting your head, you've probably encountered the work of Stanley Rosenberg. The exercises he created and introduced in his 2017 book now appear in instructional videos all over the internet. 
 
The book itself has much to recommend it: it's accessible, it's practical, it's inspiring. But it has one major flaw: the solid practical and informational content regarding the cranial nerves is framed in terms of the scientifically dubious polyvagal theory. 
 
I particularly enjoyed the book as an introduction to the therapeutic arena of bodywork, of which Rosenberg is a skilled practitioner. His book is full of case reports that demonstrate how immensely powerful extremely subtle movements and physical manipulations can be. These do need to be kept in perspective: it's a small sample size of the most remarkable cases, and the results were achieved within the supportive clinical environment of a skilled practitioner. You can tell from his descriptions how refined his technique is. But nevertheless, it was a paradigm-shifting read for me, and the exercises give you something concrete to play around with. 
 
The book also brought the cranial nerves and the concept of “social engagement” to the fore as arbiters of health. Rosenberg has a solid background in cranial nerve anatomy and shares many interesting tidbits and considerations that you don’t typically hear; for instance, the potential impact of dental and orthodontic work on cranial nerve function.
 
So, is it worth reading? If any of the above piques your interest, go for it! Just read my post on polyvagal theory first – you can use the book to practice separating the wheat (solid informational content) from the chaff (pseudoscientific framing). If nothing else, the book is a nice reminder that genuine healers who get lasting results for their patients do exist.

But if you just want to try the exercises, you can easily find them all on YouTube. 

“You learn techniques to understand principles. When you understand the principles, you will create your own techniques.” -Stanley Rosenberg
Load More Follow on Instagram

Recent Posts

  • Polyvagal Theory: A Critical Appraisal
  • Lymphatic Support for Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn’s Disease
  • Heart Rate Variability 101: What It Is, How It’s Measured, and Controversies in the Literature
  • Autonomic Nervous System 101: Anatomy and Physiology
  • Vitamin A Detox Diet for Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn’s Disease

Recent Comments

  • Alyssa Luck on Polyvagal Theory: A Critical Appraisal
  • Andrew Cook on Polyvagal Theory: A Critical Appraisal
  • Alyssa Luck on Getting Enough Carbs on the Autoimmune Protocol (AIP)
  • eugenie breida on Getting Enough Carbs on the Autoimmune Protocol (AIP)
  • eugenie breida on Getting Enough Carbs on the Autoimmune Protocol (AIP)

Categories

Archives

Copyright © 2023 · Monochrome Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in