I don't think that vegan diets are healthy long term but this case report is interesting.
Clinical remission of HLA-B27+ sacroiliitis on vegan diet

BACKGROUND: Positive effects of fasting and vegan diet in patients with rheumatic diseases are reported in the literature.

MEDICAL HISTORY: We present a 33-year-old patient with double-sided HLA B27-positive sacroiliitis, which was diagnosed by magnetic resonance tomography. Since about 10 years he therefore had pain in the iliosacral region. Numerous sessions of physiotherapy, a cure treatment, and treatment with sulfasalazine and doxycycline were not effective. The patient was dependent on the daily intake of the nonsteroidal antirheumatics meloxicam 2 x 7.5 mg and ibuprofen 400-800 mg and the analgetic tramadol 50-150 mg, but evening and night pain and morning stiffness persisted under this treatment.

TREATMENT: We recommended a temporary vegan diet, i.e. to completely avoid animal fats and proteins. COURSE: 3-4 days after changing on vegan diet the complaints improved distinctly and persistently. After consumption of meat 6 weeks later, complaints worsened. Consequent vegan diet again resulted in significant improvement of the pain and morning stiffness. At follow-up 3 months after the initial contact, tramadol and ibuprofen intakes had been stopped, meloxicam had been reduced to 1 x 7.5 mg. The patient was almost completely free of complaints.

CONCLUSIONS: It was demonstrated that in a single case of sacroiliitis which was refractory to other treatment, vegan diet resulted in a convincingly improvement of complaints.

Eliminating all egg and dairy for a while could aid gut healing if casein and/or egg intolerances were your main problem.

Wonder what type of meat was reintroduced with issues -- a big fat inflammation-encouraging grain-fed steak? Any attempts to eat fish? Food intolerances to meat proteins are much more rare than dairy, but not unheard of...

My aunt has had AS for 30 years and about 5 years ago found the same thing. She suffered from some of the worst AS I have ever heard of but is now virtually in remission, as long as she sticks to her McDougal diet. This always makes me conflicted and confused about the LSD, but I have found that it makes a big difference for myself (the LSD, that is).

HOWEVER: have to note that this is the least conclusive/scientific/rigorous study ever. it's kind of ridiculous. they followed one patient and measured their self reported pain levels

I know I tried a largely rice/vegetable diet before NSD, and it did not work at all for me. I turn out to be only mildly allergic to egg whites and moderately allergic to milk, and not at all to turkey/chicken (beef can have other issues) so skipping them was not the trick to heal up my gut. It was still leaky (as measured on a permeability test) and so all that starch was doing me no good.

I now eat a mostly raw vegan diet, but I do add in cooked fish & sushi a few times per week, and grass fed beef once or twice a month. Other than that though, all fruits, veggies, greens, nuts & seeds, and I feel awesome eating that way! No traditional straches (no bread, rice, grain, potato), but I do eat almost all fruits & veggies (except for bananas) regardless of how starchy they are, and it's working pretty well for me.

My body seems really happy for it, and my energy has dramactically increased from eating this way. I believe that the less energy the body has to spend on digesting other animal based proteins, heavy starches, & grains, the more energy the body has for staying healthy and being active, and feeling generally well all over

I do prepare animal based meals for my husband and our dogs everyday, so I am not a total self righteous "vegan". I totally cook farm fresh eggs for my hubby & dogs, along with wild game meats, fish, etc, but I just find I have a much higher energy level when I eat a plant based diet.

-Andrea

Grateful if you will let me know what a permeability test is . How does it work ?

It involves drinking a sugar water solution and measuring how much is excreted by the body and deduce from that how much escaped through the intestine (drink includes a type of sugar that is supposed to be too large to be digested that way):
http://altmedicine.about.com/od/labtestindexbyfocus/a/Permeability.htm

Also note I was eating a lot of rice for filler, so a low-starch version of vegan would no doubt have been better for me; it just wasn't what my doctor suggested

That is interesting about your aunt and the McDougall diet. I had a similar experience with a vegan diet although as SJLC mentioned, this could be mainly due to the absence of dairy and eggs. I tested positive for casein allergy and I suspect I was also lactose intolerant so that was likely a major factor.


It was not a study, only a case report. When something interesting or unexpected happens to a patient, doctors will sometimes write up a case report and have it published. If several similar case reports are published then it provides some evidence to justify further investigation. For example if you search for epsom salt case report it brings up many case reports of fatalaties following ingestion. This indicates that further investigation into dose-response effects, warning labels on packaging etc is needed. The more published case reports there are of diets helping AS, the more likely it is that controlled trials will be done (which is still very unlikely).

True. I just think it's a little bit odd to even write up a case report like this for AS - a disease known for having long periods of symptoms easing and then returning. But it is still interesting.

I wonder why there aren't more case studies like this for the NSD, it seems just the regulars on this form alone could account for plenty