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Anyone know of any doctors in the UK or Europe that would be willing to prescribe AMAT for a 17 year old?

I too appreciate Dr. Bull’s time clarifying what they set out to do and their ultimate findings. Having a therapeutic vaccine has always been the most attractive option to me. From this reading, it sounds as if we are in the beginning stages and there will need to be much refinement. I just hope it doesn’t take as long as it has for an effective vaccine for TB or Leprosy which remains elusive.

I appreciate Dr. Bull taking the time to write this for the HPF community. Interesting that the subjects given the intermediate vaccine dose had the best response. I am curious to see what the next phase of testing will display.

Dr. Tim Bull (who is part of the Human Para MAP/CD Testing Study and was instrumental in the initial design and development of the original vaccine and testing the efficacy of a prime-boost version in animals with MAP infection) was kind enough to write an article for the Human Para community breaking down the recent Crohn's MAP Vaccine Journal Article. Personally, I was having trouble understanding the impact of this latest research since it was pretty technical, so Dr. Bull's analysis was very helpful.

"This paper, entitled Safety and Immunogenicity of a Novel Recombinant Simian Adenovirus ChAdOx2 as a Vectored Vaccine, describes the initial safety studies in humans of a vaccine that is designed to stimulate immune recognition of specific components of the MAP bacterium called gsd, ahpC, mpa and p12. It does this by using a harmless virus, originally found in chimpanzees, to deliver MAP components in a manner that activates and educates powerful cells in the body’s immune repertoire so that they recognize which of their own cells are infected with MAP. Once primed, these immune cells can home in and either kill infected cells and the MAP organisms inside them or stimulate mechanisms in the infected cells so that they are able to eliminate these persistent invading organisms on their own."

The entire article can be found here:
https://humanpara.org/expert-review-crohns-map-vaccine-may-2019-research-paper/

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this new research!

Hi John-

First of all, I get that it's a big change. Those 6 foods are probably my 6 favorite foods in the world. I could eat nothing but bread and cheese and potatoes. And a pain au chocolate and latte is my ideal breakfast too.

That said, we have been doing strict SCD at home for my daughter for nearly 2 years. It's made a tremendous difference for her, she is in remission without immunosuppressants to date, and it has been beneficial for the rest of us too. It's absolutely doable, with a little bit of a steep learning curve at the beginning.

I should also clarify that I use SCD as a base, but have made some tweaks based on reading all of the dietary studies done in IBD to-date. I particularly like the IBD-AID diet (Google it) from UMass in Boston. It's based on SCD but adds factors such as food texture, phases of food introduction and pre-biotic and probiotic foods. It is a little bit less restrictive, and, although we remain strict SCD, I have observed a lot of people doing particularly well on that diet, maybe even better than SCD. But that's my anecdotal observation. I think the reason for this is the focus on whole plant foods. Traditionally, people with IBD were told to avoid fiber but that thinking has been flipped on its head based on more recent research (unless a stricture is present). Long-term low fiber diets are not beneficial for the microbiome and for production of short chain fatty acids. Traditionally, some people on SCD ate low fiber too-- lots of meat, eggs, hard cheeses, bacon, and bananas. That isn't the version of SCD we do. We eat lots and lots of veggies and fruits, peeled, deseeded and well cooked at the beginning, but not now.

I hope this rambling is remotely helpful to you, but I assume the big question is: what do we eat?

For breakfasts, we often eat eggs. We like poached, scrambled, frittatas, omelets (especially with veggies or fresh herbs). We eat lots of fruit. Smoothies. And sometimes baked goods. Many of these things can be made ahead. There are many recipe sites and cookbooks that will help you make crepes, waffles, muffins, banana or zucchini bread, madeleines or whatever you like. I love the Comfy Belly site, Elana's Pantry, Against All Grain, A Life of Happenstance and Cantillon Kitchen (she lives in the UK). There are many others. The baked goods most often use almond flour or coconut flour. I try to limit these and have found that nut butters like almond and cashew work well and are easier to digest.

For lunch, you can have sandwiches on SCD sandwich bread. Soups and salads are great. Most often, we eat leftovers from dinner or tuna salad and apple or egg salad.

For dinner, we eat a protein (we avoid beef but eat lamb, poultry and fish) with two veggies sides. Butternut squash makes fries (chips) that aren't bad. Roasted beets and celery root also give you a starchy feel, but aren't. Green veggies and the cruciferous family are staples for us. All have great health and anti-inflammatory benefits.

We bake every Sunday. There are special occasion cakes etc. We are also making Easter chocolates with cocoa butter (minus the cocoa powder). Not sure if I mentioned it but we totally avoid dairy too.

Another important thing to avoid is all food additives. Watch out for nut milks in stores. We make them, it's incredibly easy.

Bottom line is that we try to eat a large variety of plant foods, some lean protein, healthy fats like olive oil, avocado and coconut and bake breads and desserts.

One last note to say that we have largely stopped eating out. I loved fine dining for many years, but at the end of the day, my daughter's health is more important. On vacation we manage it with advance planning, but we bring our own food too. I have found that building a relationship with one particular favorite restaurant or chef can be very helpful for special occasions.

I hope that helps! Don't hesitate to let me know if you have any questions at all.

I am interested in trying out the Specific Carbohydrate Diet and need practical advice particularly with recipes and meal suggestions.  I have read some advice online and the diet seems to be very similar to the low carbohydrate (Atkins) diets that were popular about a decade ago for  promoting weight loss. 

Put in simple terms, the foods to avoid (relevant to me) are:

• Dairy products
• Sugar
• Bread
• Rice
• Pasta
• Potatoes

Looking at my diet currently, this would be a significant change, as I probably consume one or more of those things with almost every meal.  Although I can see how to avoid rice, pasta and potatoes, just stripping those out of cooked meals and adding more green vegetables (for example), I am struggling with what to eat for breakfast in particular.  Currently, I am rather fond of a pain au chocolat and a latte all of which will need to change.

Can those who have successfully followed this diet therefore give me some practical suggestions as to what to eat?

I really found this article fascinating. If you ever wanted to know everything about MAP itself (or at least what we know about MAP that's published!) this is pretty extensive:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1472979218302440

The portion about glycopeotidolipids was of particular interest since it gave a pretty detailed explanation of how MAP is able to survive and create an inflammatory response.

From what I'm hearing, the raw data should all be available by May, but then it needs to be analyzed and published. So publication may be closer to fall. But it's a bit of guesswork. I agree - it's critical to get it right. It will take as long as it takes! Also, if there are any pure culture isolates, it would be wise to run some DNA on them.

The MAP Testing project needs to be highlighted to a wider audience.  I see it is now due to complete in May, a couple of months after the original target date, but this project is a big deal and getting this right is so important.  If good quality results are available in May it could be a game changer.

Thanks to all of the faithful forum members! Here's the newsletter a day early. :-)

https://humanpara.org/the-map-gap-newsletter-april-2019/