Breaking the Vicious Cycle Review
Elaine Gottschall’s Book Redefines Celiac and Intestinal Disease
Jul 12, 2007
Digestive disorders can be difficult to treat and even more challenging to trace to a single cause. Medical and pharmaceutical approaches yield some relief, but do not often remedy the situation. In Breaking the Vicious Cycle, Elaine Gottschall suggests a new approach to food and digestion that sheds light on celiac and other absorptive disorders and offers a dietary solution that may heal Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, diverticulitis, celiac or coeliac disease (“gluten intolerance”), irritable bowel disorder, chronic diarrhea, gas and pain: a plan known as the Specific Carbohydrate Diet.
Gottschall’s research into this diet began with her daughter’s diagnosis, at age eight, of “incurable ulcerative colitis” and the recommendations by Dr. Haas, creator of the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, that transformed her life. Symptom-free within two years, she went on to quit the Specific Carbohydrate Diet several years later with no digestive trouble.
Although the research does not yet completely validate the science of the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, neither does it contradict Haas’s claims. Gottschall has faithfully represented the studies that exist, both for and against this model.
In many ways, the miracle-like success stories of people on this program speak for themselves. The book includes remarkable letters from parents and patients who have healed themselves of digestive and mental disorders using this diet.
What is the Specific Carbohydrate Diet?
Based on research findings over the course of the last century as well as evidence from doctors and patients, the Specific Carbohydrate Diet forbids the complex carbs and starches that are indigestible to people suffering from intestinal disorders. The book does not villainize carbs; rather, it targets specific carbohydrates whose structures are more difficult for the body to break down.
Contrary to what most of us were taught in nutrition class, carbohydrates may not be the easiest macronutrient (carbs, proteins, fats) for the human body to use. According to Gottschall, even an average, healthy person is able to only partially digest starches and grain polysaccharides; someone with a compromised digestive system is all but unable to digest certain long-chain carbohydrates. These partly broken-down carbs are left to rot in the digestive system and contribute to bacterial infections, poor absorption, diarrhea, pain, flatulence, mucus, changes in the cells of the intestinal wall (as in celiac disease), and even mental disorders.
What Can I Eat on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet?
On the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, the sugars in all cereal grains, cane sugar, and milk are avoided (as well as chickpeas, soy, and certain other foods). The sugars in fruits and vegetables, which are mostly monosaccharides (simple sugars), are allowed. The forms of sugar present in these foods make all the difference in whether it will be highly digestible or impossible for a celiac or Crohn’s sufferer to manage them.
Unlike other restrictive diets that may improve digestion, people on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet can ultimately return to a more ordinary diet - although caution is advised about overdoing sugar, heavily processed grains and milk products.
The book contains further specifics of the program, as well as 75 pages of recipes that conform to the diet. The “text” of the book is loaded and instructive, but barely 60 pages.
Read on for Gottschall’s take on Gluten Intolerance and Celiac (Coliac) Disease.
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