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treatment for ibs
Irritable Bowel? Eat What You Like; Add Peppermint
Report: Sufferers of irritable bowel syndrome may not have to live without their favorite foods.
By Emily Main
Topics: Celiac Disease, irritable bowel syndrome (ibs), digestive health, digestive disorders
Swap out the foods you think are triggering your symptoms, then gradually add them back. Try peppermint oil for symptom control.
IBS sufferers may be able to fill up on their favorite foods, if they do a little homework to find the cause of their symptoms.
RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—A digestive disorder present in nearly 20 percent of the population, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is often pegged to foods. But a new review of the scientific literature on the condition finds that dietary factors aren’t as guilty as doctors previously thought. Which means people with IBS may not need to give up their favorite foods or switch to a high-fiber diet.
THE DETAILS: Irritable bowel syndrome is most common in women, and in 50 percent of diagnosed cases, the person affected is under 35. The exact cause of IBS is unknown. Normally, the muscles in your intestinal walls contract and relax in rhythmic fashion as they move food through your stomach. In people with irritable bowel, the contractions are stronger and last longer, forcing food through the intestines either too fast, causing gas, bloating, and diarrhea, or too slowly, leading to hard, dry stools.
In the review published in this month’s issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, researchers reviewed over 1,000 studies hoping to determine whether there’s a dietary trigger that causes the muscles to contract and relax out of sync. Conventional wisdom is that patients with irritable bowel aren’t getting enough fiber, and a primary treatment is switching to a high-fiber diet, says the review’s lead author William Heizer, MD, a retired professor in the division of gastroenterology and hepatology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill. However, “The data indicate that [a high-fiber diet] really is of marginal benefit, and probably not useful at all in patients with diarrhea.” His review also found that scientific research has been unable to pin irritable bowel on other commonly blamed foods: coffee, alcohol, fatty foods, and diary products. They did, however, note that some carbohydrates found in sugars like fructose, common in fruit and honey and in prepared foods made with high-fructose corn syrupHigh-Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is an artificial sweetener that masquerades as sugar and is twice as sinister as the sucrose it impersonates. Bearing primary responsibility for the collective weight gain in our society, HFCS hypnotizes eaters into thinking they're always hungry. About 30 years ago, food manufacturers figured out that they could make sodas, cereals, yogurts, and some 40,000 other manufactured foods taste sweeterfor a lot less money than with simple sugar. They did it by developing HFCS (which is derived from corn). Sounds fine in theory, but here's the problem: When you eat any type of carbohydrate (like bread or fruit), your body releases insulin to regulate your body weight, pushing those carb calories into your muscles to be used as energy or storing them for later. Then it suppresses your appetite. Those carbs are the signal for you to stop filling your tank. But High-Fructose Corn Syrup doesn't stimulate insulin, so your body doesn't register it the way it registers simple white sugar. (That's why you can drink a few Big Gulps and never really feel full.) So what are you left with? You eat the HFCS-containing foods that are high in calories, but, those foods leave you wanting more. So you eat more foods with HFCS, stockpiling those calories like they're savings bonds, and the cycle of eatingand storing fatcontinues., and fructans, found in wheat, could trigger symptoms of IBS. “The amount of fructose in our diets has increased rather dramatically over the last 20 years,” says Dr. Heizer.
Published on July 21st, 2009
Last updated on August 24th, 2009
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IBS AND DIVERTICULITIS
All this is good information but I have yet to read or hear from any one who has IBS and diverticulitis, due to the frequent state of constipation I now have diverticulitis and what works for IBS complicates the diverticulitis. Please any comments or suggestions as I have tried it seems most of the products you take prior to eating.
thank you
sandi
IBS
I would never accept a diagnosis of IBS without having been tested for celiac disease. IBS and colitis are the easy answers docs pull out and all too often do not bother to look at celiac. U. of Chicago research says 1 in 130 have celiac but that most go undiagnoses. There is a blood panel for it but an endoscopy with biopsies (8 to 20 samples) is the real dianosis. I went for decades with the "easy" answers until I spent 2 months on the bathroom floor and my small bowel was in serious trouble.
IBS or food allergy ?
Really hoping people will reply to this and point me in the right direction. I've had allergy tests. Including the blood work. All negative. No allergies. Yet, if I eat fried eggs and toast, it creates 3 hours of a near death experience. I'm thinking it's got to be IBS. How do I find out? Who do I see?
Huge bummer to think I can never eat eggs again...
Food Intolerance
Just to let you know i am going throught the samething you are. I have IBS and also have food allergies! When i was younger i used to eat eggs almost everyday untill the day i found out i got sick from them, The dr.s said i was allergic to them but that isn't the case, because i can eat cookies and cakes that have eggs in them, but if i ate the egg itself (like a fried egg) I got real sick! Well i went about 3 years with out eggs and tried one day to see if i could eat them with out getting sick and I found out that i could eat them, it lasted for about 2 years, then about 1 month ago the intolerance came back. My Point to you is this, you probably arent allergic to it if you can it cakes and cookies that contain eggs, you probably have a food intolerance to eggs, their is a big difference, some people can eat small portions of the intolerant foods with out getting sick! Try staying away from your eggs from about 2 months and try again!!
IBS
Thank you all for sharing your experiences and a lot of common sense and good advice. I'd also like to add that drinking approx. 6 oz of water before eating a meal helps a great deal and should be done on a regular basis. If I do find myself sufferring from bloating, gas, or cramping I drink about a quarter of a cup or less of vinager (preferably apple cider vinager.
Irritable Bowel Syndrome IBS
Our doctor suggested Iberogast for IBS and it
is very helpful.
I.B.S treatment
Hi :). I've had I.B.S since i was born, i still suffer with it now. I'm 27, but i'm now having to cope with my breast cancer, as well as the I.B.S!! I find that sumtimes most medications for constipation just end up causing even more gas and bloating! Especially 'Lactulose' and 'Senokot'. Their both very sugary aswell. lol. It makes me wonder how half of these supposed [cos they never seem to work like they say they do on the bottle] bowel medications passed tests, to be approved to give to us "complainer's". Who in hell were given these trial medication test's? Cos they hardly work on OUR bowel. Hmmm. Or do the Dr's just wanna shut us up, so they pretend that a certain medicine WILL work, after writin out another pointless prescription? Oh Dr, how can you be so sure that it'll work on me? Are you constipated YOURSELF? If so, then that's the only way a Dr cud guarantee the medicine actually "works". Lol. Sorry, i just needed to rant about it, cos i know that Dr's never/never wanna see us go moaning to them. Well maybe if at least one lazy Dr, got off his butt and tried to see how it affect's us EMOTIONALLY, then we wouldn't need to be slagging about them would we?
IBS Help
I know one thing that will stop my IBS pain almost every time. I get cramping, gas, severe pain, etc... on a fairly regular basis. Although I have been unsuccessful at predicting it or finding its causes so far, I know that if I am starting to get my sypmtoms, smoking a bowl of fine marijuana will take those problems away. It isn't really a cure, but it alleviates the very severe symptoms that I face on an almost daily basis. I think I would be dead if it wasn't for smoking because I would not be willing or able to eat anything! The government makes it hard on me by making my medicine illegal, but at least I live in Massachusetts where it is decriminalized.
Help with the pain
I have tried everything in the world to stop the cramping, bloating & miserable other pains with IBS. I finally found something that has changed my life! No more pain! Go see your doctor & have him give you a prescription for Bentyl. This stops all your abdominal pain. There is also a generic form for this too. This drug can be taken for the rest of your life w/little side effects. So far I have none.
Good luck!
Irritable Bowel Syndrome
My gastroenterologist told me IBS was incurable. But I cured it anyway. I had had it for at least five years. A friend of mine also cured her IBS. So keep hope.
Peppermint oil helps, especially if you are going through an episode. But apparently, IBS may also be caused by an overgrowth of yeast in the system, which may (or may not) have been caused by taking antibiotics. The antibiotics kill off the bacteria, leaving room for the yeast to grow. Whether or not you have a yeast overload can be determined by a stool sample. IBS may also be caused by a "leaky gut."
For three months, I took an anti-fungal (pau d'arco and black walnut bark) or candida cleanse. I completely changed my eating habits, ate mostly steamed vegetables, excluded all sugars and gluten, and took probiotics and enzymes. I drank ginger, peppermint oil, and fennel teas, which seemed to help the condition. I eliminated raw foods and vegetable skin, which seem to irritate the gastrointestinal tract of people with IBS.
I took L-glutamine to heal the "leaky gut."
I'm not sure why but the cure for IBS also seemed to clear up an ever-present "brain fog" I had developed.
Patricia is it possible to contact you?
Hi Patricia,
Thanks for sharing your case, it is very inspiring to see someone who actually says that IBS can actually be cured.
I'd like to ask if you won't mind me contacting you on more information about how you cured it?
Thanks,
Tom
Thanks
Thanks for that post. I found it extremely helpful, as I have tried several different dietary approaches, excluding all grains and carbs, adding more nuts and seeds, so eating mostly fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, meats and meat alternatives. I find eating avocados a very good source of fat/carb/fibre without any ill effect on the IBS. My swellings usually take 2 weeks or more to go down, and it has gotten worse, even after the diet change.
So,that's my story. :) Thanks again,
Linda
Linda
If the swellings got worse how could the avocados not have had ill effect on the IBS. You seem to be positive right up to the last sentence.
IBS
I have suffered from IBS for 15 years and have found peppermint to be incredibly helpful, particularly peppermint tea with a high amount of volatile oils in it such as is found in Heathers tummy tea. I have to strongly disagree with the comment that fiber doesnt help IBS with diahrrea. Acacia fiber which is fully soluable in water and therefore causes little to no gas has helped me immensely. When having a bad bout I would go to the bathroom 30 times a day with incredible stomach cramping. Fiber and peppermint helped. Also for me staying away from dairy products helps. When I "unknowingly" have anything dairy I get severe diahrrea. I also find that stress and hormonal changes really effect my IBS. I have for the last 2 years been able to manage my IBS with fiber, peppermint tea and advil(stops cramping) when I feel an attack coming on.
Shonie's post
After excluding the one or other dietary item, I came to the conclusion that dairy and particularly milk was a problem. The trouble was that I love dairy products and if it weren't for the bloating and acidic stools I could quite happily gorge on them.
Maybe you are lactose intolerant? It is incredibly difficult to exclude lactose from your diet since all manufactured food products seem to be full of 'whey' which is a (for the dairy industry) waste product which can add sugars or proteins cheaply. All cakes and biscuits, sauces seem to have it in.
You almost have to cook all your own foods to avoid it.
I'll try the peppermint. Good luck with your IBS
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