One of my hopes for this blog and site was to be a place where people could find the results of research linking diet to disease and cure. It’s not the mainstream way of thinking about these things, yet the amount of evidence that a gluten-free diet helps conditions like Crohn’s and autoimmune forms of arthritis is significant enough that it disturbs me that it is not mentioned to patients as an option. It does not bother me all that much that people choose not to do it, but it really bothers me that they are not informed that it is even an option.
But perhaps I am being too naive.
There is a lot of Oscar buzz right now about the true story of a man who smuggled AIDS drugs into Texas before they were FDA approved called The Dallas Buyers Club. Here were people dying with no decent options and their right to experiment on themselves when there was no legally approved option was taken away. He was jailed and harrassed until years later when the drugs he had smuggled in became the standard of care.
Disturbingly, this is also the case for children and some adults with certain types of brain tumors. These people have no approved options, and just this year an option that had passed phase 2 clinical trials was taken away from them. It was cleared to go to phase 3 but never made it as the FDA shut down the only clinic that offered the treatment.
This treatment which he calls antineoplastons does not work all of the time. I don’t even think it works most of the time. It does however seem to work some of the time which is huge because all other treatments work none of the time. And it was peer reviewed in Japan and tested there and it worked on terminal liver cancer as well.
There is a new documentary about Dr. Burzynski available for viewing on Hulu. Its incredibly disturbing and its upsetting even if you don’t think that his treatments work. What is disturbing is the gag orders, the creepy witch hunt and the fact that there are plenty of other doctors who think that we should look into these cures that work with the body more.
But they can’t say anything about it.
And this is the real story. The real story is that there might be a cure for Crohn’s using diet and supplements, but your doctor may not be able to tell you about it because it isn’t the standard of care.
The good news here is that we don’t need FDA approval to take B vitamins, eat fermented foods, or eat a gluten-free diet. The bad news is that we are never going to get permission or a blessing to do so.
You can watch the documentary here
http://www.hulu.com/watch/571293
