Benefits of Fasting for IBD
26 min readFasting and intermittent fasting have gained popularity around the world for numerous health benefits—but can fasting be a new treatment for symptoms of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis?
Mission Edge (www.missionedge.org) is a highly respected local San Diego 501c3 organization that serves our community through fiscal sponsorship and non-profit services. It was an honor for Systema Fund to be accepted for sponsorship in 2024. Through fiscal sponsorship, Mission Edge will allow Systema Fund to save on operational costs and help us navigate the complexities of accepting tax deductible donations, without the need for our own 501c3. Mission Edge has processed over $40M in fiscal sponsor revenue since 2011, and we are very excited to partner with them.
Systema IBD is a one-year coaching membership for people diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, indeterminate colitis, and microscopic colitis. It is an enhanced version of our earlier program called IBDCoach (www.ibd.coach) which also had an accompanying 501c3 called IBDfund and previously raised $40K for this same purpose. IBDCoach contributed to the fast rise of condition-specific coaching, and there are now quite a few other coaches focusing on IBD. As the field evolves, Systema IBD has the infrastructure and institutional knowledge to continue moving the industry forward.
Your donation will be used primarily for grants to financially disadvantaged and underserved individuals with IBD. Additionally, if we meet a qualified applicant with a condition outside of IBD (such as IBS), we plan to offer 1-2 grants for advanced 1-on-1 coaching for that condition, as well. The remainder of donations will go towards administrative costs and planning for a research study in late 2025.
A standard, one-year membership to Systema IBD costs $4,800 (~80% of members). With additional intensive 1-on-1 support, it costs $6,800 (~20% of members). We would like to provide grants for at least 10-15 people in need by the end of 2025. We plan to achieve this with a combination of donations through Systema Fund and subsidies by Systema Health.
As part of our comprehensive application process, grant applicants are required to submit proof of financial hardship and two short personal essays to assess fit to the program. Once per month our committee will meet and award grants.
Systema Fund will provide grant recipients with a credit for half the cost of a Systema IBD membership. Systema Health will then subsidize the remaining half of the tuition, ensuring that 100% of tuition is covered.
Example Grant Process for Member with advanced 1-on-1 Coaching
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Grant application submitted
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Grant approved by committee
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Systema Fund pays $3,400
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Systema Health internally pays $3,400
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Grant Awarded to Recipient: $6,800
By Andrew Kornfeld
As the founder of Systema, I am deeply familiar with the experience of IBD. I struggled for 8 years with unrelenting Crohn’s disease, with no success from medical treatments. Shortly after graduating college, I experienced a flare so severe that I couldn’t imagine continuing to live like this. I began to take an active role in my IBD treatment protocol. I started to notice patterns in my diet and stress, and their connection to my symptoms. I found thousands of peer-reviewed research papers, meta-studies, and powerful personal narratives supporting the use of lifestyle, diet, stress reduction, exercise, mindset, supplements, microbiological correlates, nutrition and other approaches in the fight against IBD. The conclusion was clear: Medication alone wasn’t enough. With these learnings, I built a robust treatment protocol for myself to achieve a profound state of remission.
n 2018, I founded IBDCoach, and went on to empower 220+ IBD patients with the tools to tackle their condition. We used a systems- and neuroscience-based approach, and experienced incredible results that continually humbled us. For a window into the impact we had on people’s lives, watch the following video featuring our members:
We conducted a scientific survey on member outcomes in IBDCoach and the results were remarkable: IBDCoach had a profound positive impact on members’ subjective experience of disease activity and mental and emotional wellbeing. Concretely, we also saw marked improvements in fecal calprotectin tests, the gold standard measurement of inflammation in IBD. For those who self-reported results, our members saw an average decrease from 1,589 μg/g to 198 μg/g (250 μg/g is typically considered the benchmark for “in remission”).
Calprotectin before joining IBDCoach (n=10, avg. 1589 μg/g) is significantly higher than calprotectin following an average of 13.36 months in the program (n=11, avg. 198 μg/g) (P < 0.05*).
Our vision is to cultivate a global community where every person has access to seamless and integrated systems of health. Systema Fund is centered around accessibility. At this early stage, your donation will have an exponential and powerful impact, not only on someone struggling with significant chronic disease, but also on our future ability to effect positive influence on healthcare systems around the world. Thank you so much for your time and support in this critical mission.
Andrew Kornfeld
+1 (415) 847-6465
andrew@systema.health
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11 min readThrough its interactions with the microbiome and gut-brain axis, the endocannabinoid system may offer a novel pathway for managing symptoms of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
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11 min readThrough its interactions with the microbiome and gut-brain axis, the endocannabinoid system may offer a novel pathway for managing symptoms of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
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26 min readFasting and intermittent fasting have gained popularity around the world for numerous health benefits—but can fasting be a new treatment for symptoms of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis?
11 min readThrough its interactions with the microbiome and gut-brain axis, the endocannabinoid system may offer a novel pathway for managing symptoms of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
7 min readAlmost all women and females will use some form of contraception in their lifetime. Do hormonal contraceptives like birth control pills increase the risk of developing inflammatory bowel disease?