developed by: NASA; researched by Dr. Raanan Shamir

Dr. Raanan Shamir of Tel Aviv University’s Sackler School of Medicine and Schneider Children’s Medical Centre has seen a similar success rate treating children with Crohn’s disease with a nutritional powder developed by NASA for astronauts in space as has been traditionally achieved using steroid-based drugs, but without the typical side effects of malnutrition or growth retardation. Dr. Shamir recently reported his research in the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition:

“Prepared powder, with liquids, gives you all the nutritional requirements you need for the day,” Dr. Shamir explains. “We don’t know why these formulas work, and nobody has shown that any one formula is preferable to another. People have to be committed and eat nothing else during the period of time they are on nutrition therapy, and it is difficult to do — but if they do it, they go into remission.”

The nutritionally balanced cocktail has helped put 60-70% of studied children into remission after taken exclusively for 6-8 weeks. In order to retain remission, the children must get 25-50% of their caloric intake from the nutritional powder, sometimes for years. Because the treatment requires children to forego whole foods for the first 6-8 weeks it can be a difficult therapy to follow and requires the support of physicians, parents, siblings, and other members of one’s health care team.

In past studies, nutrition has not been as effective as steroids in treating adults with Crohn’s disease, but that might be because children are more compliant with dietary restrictions than adults. Dr. Shamir will be focusing on defining the exact role of nutrition in inducing remission in future studies.

source: Powerful Nutrient Cocktail Can Put Kids With Crohn’s Into Remission ScienceDaily (June 17, 2009)