March 2000, I started to see that the prednison would not cure my disease. I was very frustrated but eventually decided to turn my (low level of) energy into something positive. I was going to educate myself. My mother one day bought me the following book: Eat Right for your Type by Dr. D'Adamo.

I read it in a couple of days and decided to give it a try. My bloodtype is O+, so I am supposed to be a caveman and I should eating the same diet as he used to do in the Paleolithic period. That means: No more wheat, instead one can use spelt, which is a grain that contains less allergenes than wheat does. I also was supposed to eat more meat. Red meat would be especailly beneficial. Meat and vegetables and some spelt should make up a large part of the diet. Acids found in fruits and other foods should be avoided. This is because the stomach of an O+ person already is very acid. This is neccessary for the proper digestion of the meats.

I started the diet (I was still on prednison at that time) and discovered that my energy level gained. That was very good news.

In August / September, after having stopped the prednison (gradually ofcourse, under doctors supervision), the inflammation sadly started to return. This was visible in my blood works and I started to feel worse.

I concluded that the ER4YT diet was a step in the right direction, but it wasn't good enough.

October 2001, I stumbled upon David Gregg's Website: www.krysalis.net. His article really amazed me. He writes he has cured a woman that had Crohn's disease using DMSO.. At that time I didn't know what DMSO was, so I decided to buy the book. I also ordered the DMSO, which stands for Dimethyl Sulphoxide, from the USA, because my physician was reluctant to prescribe it for me.

This book started to open my eyes: Dr. Morton Walker showed me that many alternative medicines are boycotted by organisations like the FDA. Universities are sponsored by large pharmaceutical companies and thus can't be trusted to give objective information and perform objective studies.

One study showed that DMSO cured scleroderma. A scleroderma patient was to put one of his/her hands into a DMSO solution. Over time, the result was that both hands were healed. The FDA didn't acknowledge the efficacy of DMSO, because both hands were healed. Because the DMSO was only applied to one hand, this ruled out the fact that DMSO could have healed this person. In effect, both hands healed because the DMSO enters the bloodstream after contact and thereby also reaches the other hand !

At the end of November 2000 I finally received the DMSO and I started to use it immediately. I started to make progress. In the end, it was the SCDiet which I had also started in October 2000 that caused the healing inside of me. Read more below:

End of October 2000, I received Breaking The Vicious Cycle, written by Elaine Gottschall. I decided to buy this book after a discussion on a Crohn's newsgroup (usenet). Somebody who had gotten better told me that ER4YT was not enough to heal your intestines. Only specific carbohydrates can be eaten, the monosaccharides. No starches and complex sugars are allowed.. That means: No milk, no grains, no rice, no potatoes.. It sounded like I couldn't eat anything anymore. Anyway, I decided to buy the book so I could see for myself.

When I started reading, I got very interested in the theories Elaine Gottschall wrote about. I read the entire book in two days. And then again. I decided to start the diet. It all looked so sensible to me. The theory behind the Specific Carbohydrate Diet is very simple and clear: Don't share your meal with the bad bacteria in your stomach. This can be accomplished by only eating things, you can digest and absorb yourself. The bacteria eat carbohydrates, so one should only eat the carbohydrates that can be absorbed and digested quickly. That rules out all starches and all unnatural or refined sugars. That leaves: Glucose, which is found in fruit and small amounts of starches and fibers that are found in vegetables.

I started the diet immediately. I didn't think it would completely take away all my symptoms, but I was certain it was going to be a step in the right direction.

One week later, my weight stabilized and I didn't have to visit the toilet that often. My flatulence had almost completely disappeared and the burping too !

Two months later, and more than eight kilo's (16 pounds) heavier I realized that the SCDiet had healed my intestines. My blood works were free of flaws. My energy was back. I felt like reborn.

I did still suffer from brain fogs, night sweats and other problems. When I was diagnosed to have hypoglycemia after having done an extended glucose tolerance test, I decided to stop drinking the grape juice (15% glucose+fructose) and stop using the honey I used to put in my tea. That already helped a bit.

I also decided to buy a book to see if I could minimize the symptoms that were the result of my hypoglycemia.The low blood sugar handbook, written by Edward and Patricia Krimmel showed me that hypoglycemia can indeed cause a lot of symptoms, of which I had a lot. I started to follow the program and it did help. The book suggests to stop eating high-carb foods (also high carb vegetables like carrots). It also suggests to take a bedtime snack and a snack when you wake up. These things did help me. On one point the book is not perfect: It suggests that the diet should primarily contain carbohydrates (slow-acting). This was a problem, because it can't be combined with the SCDiet, because the slow-acting carbs the book was suggesting to eat, are forbidden on the SCDiet (full kernel bread, etc).

In the end, this book did help, but not enough to remove all symptoms.

Then I read at the hypoglycemia survey page that Dr. Atkins's New Diet was the most successful at stopping hypoglycmia symptoms from appearing. August 2001 I received the book.

This diet tells you to eat more protein, more fat and much less carbohydrates. This improved my health tremendously. The book once again showed me that the medical world isn't all that ethical. Studies that showed that a 90%-fat diet and a 90%-protein diet both caused a decrease of weight and a 90%-carbohydrate that caused in increase in weight (even when calories were severely restricted down to 50%) were not acknowledged by the nutrionial instances.. All dieticians were learned that only a calorie-restricted, low fat, high-carb diet would help. In fact, it does help sometimes but in the long-run only 3% was able to stick to the low fat diet. 97% will find themselves heavier than when they started the diet a year later.

I decided to eat less carbohydrates. I stopped eating the almonds and I ate some less vegetables.. Over time I decided to eat even less carbohydrates. In the end I decided to eat no more than 30 grams of carbohydrates a day (that's basically the same amount of carbohydrates as in one or two wheat cookies.. Not much).

This drastic change showed even more drastic improvements. My brain fogs were finally gone, I could sleep in one period, instead of waking up many,many times. I wouldn't perspire anymore during sleep. I was symptom-free at last !

Some days later I received the Diabetes Solution by Richard K. Bernstein. This book confirms my personal findings: A diabetic (a hypoglycemic is in fact a type II diabetic) should not eat more than 30 grams of carbohydrates a day.

Another thing Richard showed me was that anaerobic exercise (the exercise where your muscles start to ache after some time) drastically improves your health, because the muscles use glucose as primary fuel (whereas aerobic exercise use almost no glucose.. Jogging is worthless for controlling blood sugar). Besides that it also increases overall insulin sensitivity: The new-built muscles are not insulin resistant. This improvement is effective for two weeks after one stops exercising. So it's important to change one's lifestyle to include frequent anaerobic exercise.

I'm proud to tell you that it does work for me.. Besides that I've gained some weight.. Not fat, but pure lean muscles ! I look a lot better and I feel a lot better. The special exercise plan in his book is very nice. It takes only about 15 minutes a day to accomplish the same as normal people do when they do a regular workout !

In August 2001 I also received this book: Lights Out by T.S. Wiley with Bent Formby. It shows how wrong our current lifestyle is. One third of the book is covered with references to medical studies. I believe he is correct: Our diet and lifestyle is completely insane !

This is what happens: Because of the invention of artificial light (the light bulb), we can control night and artificial daytime. This is the primary cause of allmost all modern diseases. The lights in the winter are the worst. In the winter, the nights are very long: Up to 14 hours. What we, stupid humans, do is the following: We decide to stay up all night and get up early. We shorten the night down to five to seven hours ! This has disastrous results. Our body and hormone-producing organs think it's summer (where the nights are really short). The organs start producing hormones that should only be in the blood stream one time a year (in the summer, just before the winter).

The hormones of which the production is increased: Sex hormones (Start making children, so that next spring your baby will be born), Insulin (Eat enough carbohydrates, so they can be converted into fat), Opiums (Get satisfaction from eating high-carbohydrate foods, so we can survive the famine in the winter) !

At the same time the production of other hormones is inhibited: Melatonin, the most important antioxidant of mankind is only produced during sleep.. Well, sleep is short and we sleep in the light (even an LCD-screen of your radio is enough), so this inhibits melatonin production.

End result: More than 40% of the Americans are overweight because they chronically crave carbohydrates.. Their bodies continuously thinks famine is coming.
Sex hormones are causing cancer of the breasts and many other cancers.
The excess carbohydrate consumption causes excess levels of insulin, which increases the speed of aging ! It also destroys the heart muscle. We will all die too soon if we don't stop this.

Check this book for yourself. It's very interesting.. One very interesting aspect is that the US government is aware of the fact that our diet is completely wrong, but they won't tell you ! How come ?

Life wihtout Bread is written by Wolgang Lutz. He has done many medical studies that confirm the efficacy of the low-carbohydrate diet for many diseases, among which Crohn's and Colitis Ulcerosa. Very much detailed information is available on treating the many diseases with a low-carbohydrate diet (max 70 gram per day). Although it is very successful for treating crohn's, the SCDiet has a higher success-percentage. The technical, biochemical part of the book is also very interesting. It explains that most cells like fats a lot better than carbohydrates. Fats can be metabolized in one step by the mitochondria, the cell energy-factory, while carbohydrates need four steps to be metabolized much less efficiently than fats do.
One quote that catches the idea:

I remember one patient, the foreman of a Mercedes-Re service station, who came to me years ago and told me that he has had diarrhoea for over 15 years now and that he had consulted at least ten physicians without any success. He did not dare to leave his house anymore; when he had to out anyway, he would immediately look for a rest stop since at times he could hold his stool not even for one minute. I prescribed him a low-carbohydrate diet and told him to see me again in a fortnight, because I was sure that the problem would have resolved by then. This was indeed the case. He came, thanked me and told me that of the many doctors he consulted previously, not one knew how to help him. He did not quite understand that, because if there is mechanical trouble with one the Mercedes-Benz models, all service stations in the whole world would be informed and instructed how to repair the defect. Whether this was not so in medicine? No, I had to admit: we have the so-called scholarly medicine with certain dogmatic views, and other views are not tolerated. The many "outsiders" among the medical scientists will surely agree with me wholeheartedly.

Read chapter seven here: http://www.scdiet.org/7archives/lutz/lutz7.html

Our dog (a bouvier) is suffering from a lot flatulence. The problem is that the gas smells *REALLY* bad. Then I checked the food contents of his commercial food. A very small amount of fats and proteins is in it. On the nutrient list no carbohydrates are listed. When I check the ingredients it states: *GRAINS*. I think that this food consists primarily of grains and thus carbohydrates. This book showed me how right I was and how devastating this is to the health of a dog.
A dog is not a vegetarian, nor a omnivore: It's a carnivore ! It should eat raw meat, bones, eggs, organs. In nature they also eat the stomach contents first, so you should also supplement the diet with some green vegetables (no legumes).
Well, I started the diet immediately for our dog. No more commercial shit. I went to the butcher and was amazed to learn that raw meat and bones are *cheaper* than commercial, unnatural food. I started feeding Tascha (our Bouvier dog) the raw meats and he likes them very much. The next day I could already notice the difference. No more flatulence at all. His stools were dramatically decreased in size, as was the frequency. Dogs digest their foods very well. All that remains is some calcium-residue. Two weeks later I noticed his skin looked a *lot* better, it shined like never before.
My advice to all dog-friends: Stop herassing your dog and yourself and start this diet immediately. There's no need to be afraid of salmonella and other bacteria. The dog is completely immune to this. No need to be afraid of bones sticking in his throat. The dog can handle this perfectly. *NEVER* cook the meat/bones before feeding, because this softens the bones, which causes it to splinter and choke the dog.
Search the web for many more resources on the BARF-Diet (Bone and Raw Food Diet).

I received this book after Christmas 2001. It's a really amazing book. A must-read for anybody interested in nutrients, minerals and vitamins. The book shows how bad our diet currently is. For example refined white flour only contains 13% of the chromium-content of whole-wheat flour. Also, the cadmium:zinc ratio drops from 1:200 to 1:20. Cadmium is zinc's antagonist. Eating bread causes chromium and zinc-deficiency.
Zinc is very important for a healthy skin. I tried using zinc in 300% RDA and within a couple of days, my acne disappeared, just like Pfeiffer says in his book.
Update, 31st of August 2002: Alas, it didn't last.. My acne finally started to diminish on a fully raw diet The books is from 1975, but is still very uptodate. We are still the same humans, and our needs for minerals and vitamins and proper proteins and fats have not changed. Many mental illnesses can be cured by mineral supplements.
I was amazed to see that the meals in hospitals cause mineral deficiencies. A century ago haute-cuisine was served in hospitals and the managers sat and ate at the same table as the patients.
I learned that white marks on your nails are a sign of zinc deficiency. Most people suffer from zinc deficiency. Repleting zinc can turn grey/white hair back into brown, can cure chronic cold extremities and acne. I suffer from all three and some weeks ago I still had some white marks on my nails. They've disappeared too. I will let you know if it also cures my (few) white hairs and the cold hands and feet. The acne is already disappearing.
In the many chapters he focuses on each mineral and vitamin one at a time. Very detailed information.
Imagine what might have happened if my physican would have prescribed antibiotics for the acne, which in the end would not solve a thing and induce a dysbiosis in the intestines (C.Diff, etc).

This review is written by Martyn, one of the visitors

In his chiropractic practice dr. Pagano has during 25 years concentrated his efforts on studying psoriatric patients and theories. He has also concentrated on proving, indisputably, that psoriasis and eczema, long classified as 'incurable' by the orthodox scientific community, can be healed in a perfectly natural way. The holistic based method avoids any synthetic systhemic or topical drugs (corticosteroids, like prednisone, and even immuunsuppressants) which never leads to a structural cure but often to further illness, addiction and misery.

Pagano says that psoriasis is a external manifestation of an internal intoxification of the human body. His approch is conform the leaky gut theory: internal toxins that have accumulated in the lymphatics and blood stream by 'seeping' through thin intestinal walls. His alternative approach to healing is based twofold:

1. clearing out the poisons that have accumulated in the body,
2. preventing further intake of toxic elements.

To achieve the two basic requirements the patient has to have a internal cleansing (bowels, kidney, liver), a restrictive nutritious diet (of 80% alkalic food and 20% acid food, no nightshades, no sugar, no alcohol), specific herb teas, some external applications (optional) and right thinking. The therapy, also applicable for eczema, is well known in most (alternative) skin disease communities among the internet and it is helpfull for the majority of patients (so, mostly 95-100% symptom free or significant helpfull).

The pagano theory (also based on Edgar Cayce theories) is very similar to the Scdiet approach. For more infromation you can surf to www.psoriasis-healing.com. The book costs about $25 (warning: I have no formal, informal, financial or other kinds of contact with this foundation). For moderate and severe psoriasis and eczema, the regular approach is, in my opinion, non effective and even health destructive on the medium or long term.

Kwasniewski's diet is backed up by good research that was conducted in Poland. Several ten-thousands of people follow his diet with great success.

The key to his diet is the proportions between the basic foods, carbohydrates, proteins and fats.
Take your weigh in kilograms, and call that grams. That's how many proteins you need. Multiply that number by three to see how many fat you need. Multiply the protein grams by 80% to get the amount of carbohydrates you can maximally eat.. 50g is that max anyhow.

In his clinic he combines his diet with some sort of electricity treatment, comparable to acupuncture. He claims to have cured asthma and allergies in three to twelve days in several tests, by combining the diet and the electric currents type S. Type S stimulates the symphatetic system in the lungs, the action of which is similar to adrenaline.

Here's a short quote from his book:
"It is a common opnion that asthma and other allergic diseases are caused by certain allergens: dust, feather, dust mites, cats's fur, pollen, and some foods. This opinion is wrong. All of us come into contact with these or other allergens, but only a few of us get the disease. In order to suffer from asthma one has to have certain "fault" within the body, which is not present in those who do not get ill. The cause of that fault is a certain kind of nutrition which results in the localised domination of the parasymphatetic system within the respiratory organ.

Is it possible to cure oneself of asthma ? Almost always possible and the cure is permanent.

In Arkadia (Ed:his clinic), there were 41 asthma sufferes in ages ranging between 14 to 67 years, suffering on average 13 years (From 3 to 37 years).
All were treated with the optimal dietand the selective type S electric currents stimulating the symphatetic system in the lungs, the action of which is similar to adrenaline.

The results were: A cure after 2-3 days in 14 (34%) patients, a cure after 7-12 days in 10 patients, the total number of those cured within the time of the stay (14 days) was 24 (59%).

All of the asthmatics who left with improved health, cured themselves at home by continuing the optimal diet - within a period of up to 4 months."

Impressive...

Please note that a 1:3 ratio of protein:fat is quite high. For example: Poultry is not to be eaten alone and should always be combined with enough lard or butter.
He also has found the one and only healthy vegetarian diet I think: Cheese, eggs, cream, butter, nuts.. Gandhi for one ate this diet.. Interesting..
By the way, Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian (the unhealthy type of course), who at age 50 suffered from such an advanced atherosclerotic Parkinsonism, that his left hand was totally paralysed.

Here is another interesting quote:
"Did you try to recommend the optimal diet for the sports people ?
- I did indeed. There is a leading football team in Poland for the players of which, I recommended correct nutrition. They are resistant to fatigue, play agressively, and typically score goals in the second half when their opposition is falling apart. And one more important detail - they do not have muscle cramps and suffer injuries much less often than other players."

Further interesting notes:
Cheese is not *fat* enough. You should always add cream, butter or mayonaisse
Meat: 100-200 grams should suffice for an adult person
Eggs: Really good, eat several of those each day, but remember to include enough fat
Organ meat: offal, brains, cartillage, connective tissue, pork skin.
Fruits: None should be eaten. Among the worst are the apple and pear due to their high carb:protein ratio
Veggies: Max 300g should be eaten per day.. The vitamins in them are not needed
Vitamins: Not needed: The burning of fat needs few vitamins and those are already in the animal fats

For example he uses brain and cartillage for treating MS
He uses pork skin to treat psoriasis, etc

Bone marrow is very good. Two people can have a perfect meal with one beef thighbone..

His book is divided in four parts:
1. Questions and Answers on the diet
2. Specific Diseases
3. Nutrition during a specific physiological condition (pregnancy, children, babies, etc)
4. Recipes and a 14-day diet

And then there are several tables for protein-fat-carb contents of foods.

Most of his recipes are based on pork,eggs and lots of lard and butter.

After a while hunger totally disappears and people only eat once or twice a day.
Calory-counting should never be done. When the optimal diet is eaten, the body gives the perfect feedback on when and what to eat.

The book also contains many testimonials, among which professors and medical doctors.
The diet is a great success in Poland, but also in the US among people who used to live in Poland.
In some areas of Poland, the insulin sales have dropped over 65% !

It's obvious the medical and pharmaceutical companies have a lot less power in Poland (there is just no $200,000 for every cancer patient).
Kwasniewski just uses the terms "cure" and "cured" many times throughout his book.. In the Western world no author dares to use those words.
Also, I like a lot that there has been extensive studies that prove the power of this diet in treating virtually all modern diseases.
I hope these studies will be translated into English, so we can read them also..

Differences with Atkins:
Optimal Diet restricts amount of proteins
Optimal Diet has a strict protein:fat ratio of 1:3
Optimal Diet doesn't use soy
Optimal Diet focues on using good animal fats and also on eating organ meats

Conclusion: Thumbs up for this amazing book..
Here are some links on the Homo Optimus / Optimal Diet:
www.newtreatments.org/sites (browse down to Homo Optimus)

The book can be bought directly from the Poland distributor with a credit-card:
www.wgp.com.pl/index.php?id_s=205&id_j=en . Costs 23 dollar or 22 euro.

From the Dutch "Bitje" Magazine: A good review of The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe
by Lynne McTaggart

The Field is a very fascinating book and a must-read for openminded people who already believe that there is more between heaven and earth, but especially for the people who resist to believe that this is the case. This book reviews a massive amount of scientific evidence that water *can* hold information, that the life force ch'i does exist, that the body radiates *light* and many more interesting subjects. Using special devices one can make visible the energetic field around any living organism. Using this technique it became clear that a baby salamander has the energy field around him of his full-grown version: A blueprint. It's probably this blueprint which the body follows during the growing process. Biology has never managed to explain how the body knows that this end of the body should form a foot, while another part should form an eye. This blueprint might be part of the explanation. The book is very well readable for both the interested reader and scientists.
The book can be ordered from Amazon: The Field.
The review in Dutch can be read in the June 2004 issue of "Het Bitje".
 
 
 
 

On BeyondVeg.com: A good review of NeanderThin: A Caveman's Guide to Nutrition
by Ray Audette with Troy Gilchrist

NeanderThin author Ray Audette is someone who appears to be a real-life nature boy at the same time he's a science aficionado to boot. He spends considerable time hunting and gathering with his falcon, making him something of a Tom Brown for the alternative diet crowd. In keeping with that, Audette's book NeanderThin is an easily-read, somewhat meandering exposition of why he thinks we should all be eating a paleodiet. It's really devilishly simple, almost religious even--with chapters titled "Genesis," "Life in the Garden of Eden," and even "Catechism." I took the religious overtones as tongue-in-cheek originally, but rumor has it that Mr. Audette is working on a book about Paleolithic religion, so right now it's unclear how seriously he considers the religious overtones. Read the rest of the review on BeyondVeg.com