Ulcerative colitis provoked by milk

Abstract

During the last few years it has proved possible to recognize a group of patients with ulcerative colitis in whom removal of milk and protein-containing milk products from the diet has been followed by marked improvement in the clinical course of the illness. In five of these patients milk has been reintroduced into the diet, and on every occasion this has been followed in a few days or weeks by a frank attack of ulcerative colitis. One patient was tested twice on separate occasions, so that there were six such events in all. From previous studies in which patients in clinical remission were being treated with “ dummy ” tablets, it is possible to arrive at an estimate of the risk of spontaneous relapse in a patient with ulcerative colitis. Taking an outside figure for this risk, it can be shown that it was very unlikely that the six relapses would have occurred by chance alone. In other words there was almost certainly a causal connexion between the reintroduction of milk into the diet and the subsequent relapse. © 1961, British Medical Journal Publishing Group. All rights reserved.