article on SC diet

[Guest guest]

Dear CCFA,

I just completed reading your article on the SC diet, and am compelled to write.

It is disappointing that Debra Gordon felt unable to write a more positive piece

on this diet, which is so commonly used for IBD.

She couldn't find a doctor who fully supports the use of this diet? How odd.

There are online lists of gastroenterologists who support the use of the SC diet

in their patients, and my daughter's doctor as Mass General in Boston is among

them (he, in fact, tries to get ALL his patients with IBD to follow the diet,

and works with a dietician at the hospital who is also very knowledgeable about

implementing the SC diet with children).

The article mentions how difficult following the diet could be for a child

already taking 15-20 pills a day. Doesn't taking 20 pills a day have a negative

effect on a person?! And the potential benefits are not mentioned in relation

to this. My daughter takes one pill a day--50 mg. of Imuran--and this is a

distinct change from the handful she needed to take before starting the diet.

My daughter has been on the diet 8 months, and, while it was not easy in the

beginning to change our diet to be fully SCD-compliant, it now just feels like

" the way we eat " .

As a medical journalist myself, I would not have felt satisfied submitting a

piece as one-sided as this. There is another side of the SC story, and, with

very little sleuthing, Debra Gordon could have found it.

I look forward to hearing that CCFA, which is so interested in playing " an

important role in fostering research on nutrition and IBD " . has given funding

for a much-needed double-blind study of the SC diet.

Sincerely Yours,

Ellen S. Zagorsky Goldberg, MSN, RN