No, shingles virus does not cause colitis — here's what does

What did @medicalmedium actually say?

Anthony William, the self-described "Medical Medium" behind this account, claims that colitis, including ulcerative colitis, is caused by "this little bug right here, the shingles virus" nesting inside the colon lining. He says the virus feeds on specific foods, including gluten, dairy, eggs, and butter, and that eating those foods causes the virus to multiply and drive inflammation. His prescription is dietary elimination. No doctor, no diagnosis, no testing. Just cut the pizza and heal your colon.

This is not a fringe interpretation of contested science. It is a fabricated causal model with no peer-reviewed basis. William has no medical degree, nursing license, or any documented scientific training. He attributes his knowledge to a "spirit" he says has guided him since childhood. That context matters when 231,000 people are watching him explain the mechanism of a serious inflammatory bowel disease.

Does the science back this up?

No. There is no credible peer-reviewed evidence that the varicella-zoster virus (VZV, which causes shingles) causes ulcerative colitis or any form of colitis. The established science points elsewhere entirely, and it is well-documented.

Ulcerative colitis is a chronic immune-mediated inflammatory bowel disease. The current scientific consensus, supported by genome-wide association studies, identifies dysregulated mucosal immune responses, disrupted intestinal barrier function, and gut microbiome imbalance as central mechanisms. Jostins et al. (2012, Nature) identified over 160 genetic loci associated with IBD, none of which implicate VZV. Ng et al. (2017, Lancet) documented rising global IBD incidence tied to westernized diet patterns and environmental shifts, not viral colonization of the colon.

VZV does have documented gastrointestinal involvement in immunocompromised patients, but this is rare, acute, and nothing like the chronic smoldering colitis William describes. Sato et al. (2010, Journal of Gastroenterology) reported VZV-associated colitis in a post-transplant patient, a genuinely unusual case, not a population-level cause of the disease.

What did they get wrong (or right)?

Almost everything mechanistic in this video is wrong. The claim that "the shingles virus nests inside someone's colon" and drives colitis through dietary feeding has no scientific support. Calling VZV the cause of colitis is not a simplification of complex science. It is a replacement of science with invention.

To be fair, William correctly describes some real symptoms. Ulcerative colitis does cause rectal bleeding from ruptured blood vessels in the inflamed colon lining. The disease is painful. Flares can lead to steroid use and, in severe cases, surgical intervention. Those clinical facts are accurate and not in dispute.

He also gets partial credit for noting that diet affects symptoms. Diet does matter in IBD management, though not for the reasons he claims. Limketkai et al. (2022, Cochrane Database) reviewed dietary interventions in IBD and found some evidence for specific carbohydrate diets and Mediterranean-style eating reducing inflammatory markers, but the mechanism involves the microbiome and mucosal immunity, not starving a virus.

The dangerous part is not what he got right. It is the confident, specific false cause he attaches to those real symptoms. Patients delaying immunosuppressive therapy or biologics because they think cutting eggs will "heal" their colitis can face serious disease progression.

What should you actually know?

Colitis is a real, serious disease with real treatments. If you have been diagnosed, or suspect you have IBD, the standard of care involves a gastroenterologist, colonoscopy, histopathology, and often evidence-based therapies including aminosalicylates, corticosteroids, immunomodulators, or biologics like vedolizumab and ustekinumab, which target specific inflammatory pathways.

Dietary changes can support disease management but do not replace medical treatment. The Specific Carbohydrate Diet and Mediterranean diet have shown some symptom benefit in studies, but no diet has been proven to induce remission in moderate-to-severe UC on its own.

If you are interested in emerging research on gut healing, there is legitimate science worth knowing. BPC-157, a synthetic peptide derived from a gastric protein, has shown anti-inflammatory and mucosal repair effects in preclinical animal models of colitis (Sikiric et al., 2018, Current Pharmaceutical Design). That research is preliminary and not yet validated in human clinical trials for IBD. It does not mean BPC-157 treats or cures colitis, and no regulated telehealth platform should frame it that way. But it represents actual mechanistic research, not spirit-channeled viral mythology.

The bottom line: shingles does not cause colitis. Do not restructure your medical care around a TikTok video from someone with no medical credentials explaining diseases through conversations with spirits.