Sometimes you will see this diet referred to as an anti-inflammatory diet, autoimmune paleo diet, autoimmune protocol, AIP or an elimination diet. You need to read the details of each in whatever source you’re using, but generally they all mean basically the same thing.

What you can eat on an autoimmune paleo diet:

• healthy meat, same rules apply as for the standard paleo diet: pastured, no hormones, no antibiotics administered, humanely raised (basically, you want to buy the very best quality you can afford)
• some vegetables (see exclusions below)
• fruits
• healthy fats (from healthy animals), olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil

What you cannot eat on an autoimmune paleo diet:

• first, take out everything that is eliminated on the paleo diet (see list here)
• nuts
• seeds (this includes coffee and chocolate – it’s ok to cry)
• nightshade vegetables (tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, white potatoes)
• refined or non-nutritive sweeteners
• eggs
• alcohol
• seed-based spices

I highly recommend you read this book by Chris Kresser which contains very understandable information about how to go through an elimination diet with the goal of figuring out what works best for your body.

When you look at that short list of foods you can eat, this can feel extremely limiting. Please remember a couple of things:

1. You should not have to exclude all these foods forever. The whole point of an elimination diet is to learn what you can safely add back in. This too shall pass, though admittedly, it may not feel like it at times.

2. I am here to help you! It’s ok to complain because it does stink to have a disease and have to live with limitations. My goal is to give you really creative recipes that make you forget your “safe” food list is so short. If you need lots of help, consider private health coaching.

3. You are not alone! There are so many of us out here trying to heal our bodies from autoimmune disease through diet and lifestyle changes. This may not be mainstream yet, but there is lots of support out there. If you haven’t already, check out a few of my favorite blogs, which are great sources of reputable information and recipes:

• Against All Grain
• Wellness Mama
• Balanced Bites
• Chris Kresser
• The Paleo Mom
• Autoimmune Wellness

Each of these sites has been valuable to me in one way or another and I still read them regularly today. If you ever want to know the why behind something paleo or autoimmune, I recommend you visit their sites for all the in-depth science details, particularly Chris Kresser and The Paleo Mom.

Current Research:

AIP diet in Hashimoto’s thyroiditis 

This study, published in April of 2019, followed 17 women diagnosed with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (autoimmune thyroid disease) for 10 weeks. The study authors were trying to determine if they could improve quality of life and reduce symptoms while on the AIP diet. They used the SAD to AIP in Six program. Results were as follows:

• statistically significant improvements were seen in physical and emotional health, pain reduction and vitality
• six of the participants were able to reduce their thyroid medications
• the community aspect of the study played a significant role in the success of the program
• antibodies didn’t change significantly, but the symptom improvements were dramatic
• hsCRP, a marker of inflammation in the body, was reduced significantly

Takeaways:

• Everyone’s timeline is different. Some people saw rapid improvement, others more gradual, but everyone’s symptoms improved.
• The doctor running the study suggested that everyone try a dietary intervention such as AIP for 6-8 weeks prior to even seeing a functional medicine provider. Major improvements can be made in that time and then you can see the doctor and let him or her deal with the more stubborn aspects of your disease.
• Changing your diet may not be enough. For some people it is and for some it isn’t. When diet alone isn’t providing the relief you want or need, it’s time to dig deeper into the other facets of functional medicine: stress management, sleep health, toxin exposure, emotional/community support.

AIP diet in Inflammatory Bowel Disease

This study, published in November of 2017, followed 15 adult patients with either active Crohn’s disease or Ulcerative Colitis (9 with Crohn’s and 6 with UC) who followed an AIP diet for a 6-week elimination followed by 5-week maintenance phase. The study authors were primarily interested in determining how many, if any, of the study participants would achieve clinical remission by the completion fo the study (11 weeks later).

Results:

• clinical remission was achieved at week 6 by 11/15 (73%) study participants (6 CD and 5 UC), and all 11 maintained clinical remission during the maintenance phase of the study.
• dietary modification focused on the elimination of immunogenic or intolerant food groups and showed that dietary change can be an important adjunct to IBD therapy not only to achieve remission but perhaps improve the durability of response and remission
• researchers saw reduction in fecal calprotectin, an inflammatory marker in IBD, and improvements in the mucosal appearance in most patients undergoing follow-up endoscopy

Takeaways:

• for a subset of patients, dietary and lifestyle modification alone may be sufficient to control underlying disease
• patients wishing to incorporate dietary therapy should be counseled how to manage micronutrient deficiencies and monitored routinely
• integrating and coordinating care with health coaches and registered dieticians can allow for effective education and implementation of dietary modification over time, in accordance with unique patient goals as well
• larger randomized trials are needed to validate these findings and examine the long-term course of patients during reintroduction

The University of Massachusetts Medical School’s Center for Applied Nutrition has created a diet that is proving to be very effective at treating autoimmune disease. It’s call the anti-inflammatory diet for IBD (inflammatory bowel disease) or IBD-AID. Please note that whereas this diet was designed specifically for IBD, there is significant anecdotal evidence of its effectiveness in other autoimmune conditions.

Please go to the AID website for all the details on the diet, but here is a quick summary. If you have active IBD and are anxious to get started healing naturally, I highly recommend you look into this diet. One of the great things about it is that it offers specific recommendations for various levels of disease.

The IBD-AID was derived from the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) and modified with current research on the human microbiome. Research has shown that IBD patients have an imbalance of gut bacteria, which contributes to inflammation.  This diet helps to restore balance between helpful and harmful bacteria while promoting good nutrition. The IBD-AID has three phases to treat flares and progress to the ultimate goal of maintaining remission.  Every day incorporate the four fundamental components on the IBD-AID:

1. Probiotics: These are fermented foods that have live bacteria within them, such as plain yogurt, kefir, kimchi, miso, and fermented veggies like sauerkraut.
2. Prebiotics: Foods that feed and maintain the good intestinal bacteria.
3. Avoidance: The IBD-AID diet emphasizes avoidance of certain carbohydrates that are pro-inflammatory which may be disturbing the normal gut flora. Foods that contain lactose, wheat, refined sugar (sucrose), and corn are avoided in all phases of the diet.
4. Good nutrition: Eat a variety of fruit and vegetables, lean proteins and healthy fats. (legumes, nuts, olive oil, avocado, ground flaxseed, fish, eggs, probiotic yogurt and kefir), limit intake of saturated fat, increase intake of good fats from nuts, avocado, olive oil, etc.

The IBD-AID diet focuses on three phases of disease:

Phase 1 – Active Flare, symptoms present

Phase 2 – intermittent symptoms

Phase 3 – maintenance/remission

This chart is a few pages long, but very detailed and very helpful if you’d like to know exactly what to eat based on your level of disease (according to the AID authors). This chart lists what you CAN eat, which I find much more helpful than a list of what you can’t eat. Even the psychology of this is important – looking at such a long list of allowable foods is encouraging!

Please note that this list is far more inclusive than AIP so if, for example, you know that oats are problematic for you, don’t eat them, even though they are allowed on this diet. Knowing yourself is important. However, if you’ve looked into AIP and found it to be so restrictive that you didn’t even want to give it a try, consider the AID first and see how you feel. You can always make the switch to AIP later.

I hope you found this helpful and encouraging! I’m just glad to know that there are doctors out there running studies on functional medicine principles – and that they are proving, in a statistically significant way, to be effective!

As always, I wish you good health! Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have questions about these studies, the AID diet or functional medicine in general.