First, a snark admission. I read the article and the comments concurrently. I was not disappointed in how quickly the reductionists came out to defend their favorite theory of caloric thermodynamics.
That said, I will provide an personal anecdote for your perusal and make one suggestion. First, the anecdote:
I dropped from a weight of 205 - 210 pounds to a weight of 145 pounds over the course of three years. I am back up to 155 pounds. Yes, that last detail is important to my story. I am 5-foot-8-inches, so this is a radical change of BMI. Why did I lose so much weight? A radical change in diet.
I have a medical condition for which I was trying to avoid the most expensive treatments. I moved (not overnight) to a diet that removed virtually all grain-based and tuber-based carbohydrates. My carbohydrates came from fruits and leafy vegetables. No, I do not advise this diet for anyone unless they are trying to avoid the drugs that comes with my condition.
It worked. I went off the over-priced 1890's-era anti-inflammatory medication and stayed it for three years. Then, my symptoms returned.
New doctor, who said nothing about my diet and threw steroids and more anti-inflammatory meds at me. Those did not work. I lost even more weight, down to 135 pounds. I even went off my diet. Yes, it was good to eat bread, potatoes, and rice again.
Finally, I gave in and accepted that I would be on a ludicrously priced biological. Symptoms arrested. Now, back to my old diet. I have ten pounds to lose to get to my target weight.
What I am suggesting is that reductionism works. My diet notebooks shows a slight reduction in calories by removing grain-and-tuber carbs. However, it only takes you so far. There is room for wholism and seeking an understanding of exactly how a given source of nutrients is metabolized.
If you don't mind my asking -- what is your condition? I've got Ulcerative Colitis, and tried a similar diet (the Specific Carbohydrate Diet) to reasonable success. I've also had a few rounds of Infliximab (Remicade), which has helped me reach remission.
You quite correctly diagnosed my ailment and diet. I wasn't (and still am not) wild about being on Infliximab, but it's better than the alternative. I'm also quite thankful for my University position and the very good insurance that comes with it.
To take this completely off-topic: I was surprised when the SCD had a good effect. I found it wasn't 100% accurate; there were certain food groups I could tolerate, and others that I couldn't. Which the diet accounts for; everyone's physiology is different. However, for what it's worth, I (and a group of people in a local UC group) found the low FODMAP diet correlated well (which is more recently researched than the SCD, and a little easier to manage). Unfortunately for me, my illness also overcame the strengths of the diet.
Here's the "one weird trick" part though. There's a documented negative correlation between appendectomies and occurrence of UC/Crohn's. There's early, but growing evidence that an appendectomy may work as a treatment for some types of UC (at least in the young). After my last flare, we tried an appendectomy -- the alternatives were a lifetime of Infliximab (which is expensive for our public health system), or a full colectomy (which, in all honesty, I was leaning towards anyway). It worked, and I'm now in full remission. I don't know whether it'll be lasting, but my related eye conditions (which persisted during a limited round of treatment with Infliximab during an earlier flare) have vanished too. I've since relaxed my diet, although I still have a lot of probiotic yoghurt.
It's worth checking Google Scholar -- there are some openly available literature reviews. I believe there's some discussion on https://crohnology.com/ too :).
Good luck with your illness. It's a hard road, no matter which path you take.
That said, I will provide an personal anecdote for your perusal and make one suggestion. First, the anecdote: I dropped from a weight of 205 - 210 pounds to a weight of 145 pounds over the course of three years. I am back up to 155 pounds. Yes, that last detail is important to my story. I am 5-foot-8-inches, so this is a radical change of BMI. Why did I lose so much weight? A radical change in diet.
I have a medical condition for which I was trying to avoid the most expensive treatments. I moved (not overnight) to a diet that removed virtually all grain-based and tuber-based carbohydrates. My carbohydrates came from fruits and leafy vegetables. No, I do not advise this diet for anyone unless they are trying to avoid the drugs that comes with my condition.
It worked. I went off the over-priced 1890's-era anti-inflammatory medication and stayed it for three years. Then, my symptoms returned.
New doctor, who said nothing about my diet and threw steroids and more anti-inflammatory meds at me. Those did not work. I lost even more weight, down to 135 pounds. I even went off my diet. Yes, it was good to eat bread, potatoes, and rice again.
Finally, I gave in and accepted that I would be on a ludicrously priced biological. Symptoms arrested. Now, back to my old diet. I have ten pounds to lose to get to my target weight.
What I am suggesting is that reductionism works. My diet notebooks shows a slight reduction in calories by removing grain-and-tuber carbs. However, it only takes you so far. There is room for wholism and seeking an understanding of exactly how a given source of nutrients is metabolized.