The IBD-AID: Anti-inflammatory Diet for Crohn's and Colitis

Against the Grain

Barbara Olendzki RD, MPH, LDN is Associate Professor of Medicine and the Nutrition Program Director of the Center for Applied Nutrition at the University of Massachusetts. She is passionate about research and clinical care of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), cardiac concerns, cancer, diabetes, obesity, and other inflammatory diseases. She has 20 years of experience in the nutrition field. She created the IBD-anti inflammatory diet (IBD-AID) which is based on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet but with an emphasis on pre and probiotics, healthy fats and textures of foods. It also includes certain carbohydrates like oatmeal and other foods that are otherwise forbidden on the SCD.
She published a case series in 2014 of 11 patients with IBD who went on her dietary protcol. Most of these patients had failed one or more medications, or medications had no effect or there was a loss of response. After using the IBD-AID, all patients were able to de-escalate medical therapy to some degree and all had symptoms reduced. Since that publication, she has updated the protocol and kindly shared her insights regarding implementing the IBD-AID clinically. As a disclaimer, this is not an endorsement or recommendation of this diet for the treatment of IBD as the IBD-AID has not been FDA approved for this purpose.
Barbara's website can be found here: https://www.umassmed.edu/nutrition/