WHICH FOODS TRIGGER YOUR IBS?

You may already be all too aware of which foods and drinks make your IBS symptoms worse.  Sometimes, though, I’ve had clients come to me, who found it difficult to pinpoint which foods were the culprits.  What’s become clear from seeing clients over the years is that everybody is different.  Foods that affect one person badly are fine for someone else.

Have you heard of the FODMAP diet?

If you have – great!  You’ll know that it identifies foods, which can be problematic for people with IBS.  I’ve had some clients who hadn’t heard of the FODMAP diet, so in case you’re unfamiliar with it, here is some information:

The FODMAP diet was first developed in Australia and then adapted for the UK by a team at King’s College, London.  FODMAP stands for Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides and Polyols – no wonder they shortened it!  FODMAPs are short chain carbohydrates, which don’t get absorbed well by the small intestine.  They increase water in the small intestine, producing loose stools and then get fermented by bacteria in the large intestine, creating gas and bloating.

The FODMAP diet involves avoiding foods high in FODMAPs, which include certain vegetables and fruit, pulses, some dairy products, bran, and wheat foods, including bread, cereal and pasta.  Here’s a list of just some of them:

Vegetables:  Onions, garlic and leeks, cauliflower, cabbage, mushrooms, peas

Fruit: Apples, peaches, pears, plums

Milk: cow’s, goat’s and sheep’s, cream

Barley & rye

Cashews & pistachios

This isn’t the full list, by any means.

Also, while the FODMAP diet gives some good guidance and can help with IBS symptoms, it hasn’t totally solved things for a number of my clients.  Many of them certainly shared problems with onions, but other than that, the foods they found helpful to avoid varied enormously.  Sometimes this has included low FODMAP foods as well.  One of my clients couldn’t tolerate bananas or citrus fruit, for example, which are low FODMAP.

How best to follow the FODMAP diet

If you do want to follow the FODMAP diet, the recommendation is to stop eating high FODMAP foods for 4 to 8 weeks and then gradually re-introduce them.  Depending on whether they affect your IBS or not, you can build up a personalised list of which foods to avoid.  You can find more information about the FODMAP diet at:

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/lsm/Schools/life-course-sciences/departments/nutritional-sciences/projects/fodmaps/faq.aspx

If you haven’t done so already, it can be helpful to keep a food diary to see what triggers your IBS symptoms, noting down everything you eat and drink and in what quantities.  Maybe reducing certain things, rather than cutting them out completely, might bring you some improvements.

Find a dietitian or nutritional therapist

If you intend following the FODMAP diet, it’s best to find a dietitian or nutritional therapist qualified in its use.  They’ll make sure that you continue to have a balanced diet and don’t miss out on important nutrients for your health.  Also, avoiding high FODMAP foods is not always straightforward, because they can be hidden in packaged and processed food.  Corn syrup and some other sweeteners often used in processed foods are prime examples of that.

FODMAP app

There is a FODMAP app, which has been developed by King’s College London and Guys & St Thomas’ NHS Trust.  It helps guide you through the different stages of the FODMAP diet and scans food bar codes to help you identify suitable products.  You can download it from the usual places for £3.99 last time I looked.

It’s not all about the food, though

Avoiding certain foods can certainly be helpful, but it’s not the whole story with IBS.  Equally as important is reducing and/or managing the stress that is a key contributor to making IBS worse.   It’s essential to look at the stress you might be under from work, family commitments, financial problems and other external factors and find healthy ways of dealing with it.  It’s also essential to look at the stress you put on yourself by perfectionism, taking on too much, not saying ‘no’ and negative thinking.  Time after time, when my clients have learned to get their stress under control, I’ve seen their IBS symptoms get better and their quality of life improve in so many ways.

Would you like to transform your IBS?

Contact me for a free, 30-minute phone consultation to find out how hypnotherapy can help IBS.  Phone 0208 546 2122 or e-mail anne@transforming-health.co.uk

(Photo by Kornelija www.stockfreeimages.com)

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Photo by Nadki www.stockfreeimages.com

THE ENEMY (AND FRIENDS) WITHIN

There’s more and more research coming out about the importance of gut bacteria.  It seems that they don’t just sit in your gut, minding their own business.  They can have a huge impact on your health, as recent studies into obesity and cancer treatments have discovered.

You probably know that we have trillions of bacteria in our gut, some good, some bad.  A 2017 study at the University of Copenhagen suggested that gut bacteria may be responsible for how much weight we can lose.  Another 2013 study found that slimmer people had more diverse gut bacteria than obese people, and it’s thought that different kinds of gut bacteria affect your metabolism and how you absorb calories and nutrients.  One type interferes with the hunger hormone ghrelin, causing you to eat more.  Researchers have also made links between gut bacteria and Parkinson’s Disease and in how well people respond to immunotherapy for cancer.

Gut bacteria and IBS

There are some studies* which suggest that IBS symptoms can be helped by rebalancing gut bacteria.  You may already be aware that you can boost your good gut bacteria with probiotics, which are live bacteria, and this may help reduce bloating and gas.  Probiotics are found in fermented dairy products, such as kefir and some yoghurts, and in fermented vegetables, such as sauerkraut, or you can buy them in supplement form.  Bad gut bacteria, on the other hand, thrive on sugar, so it’s helpful to cut down on the sweet stuff.

* https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3816178/

So far, the research hasn’t pinpointed which probiotics are effective in helping IBS.  A bit like the FODMAP diet (please see my blog post on The worst foods for IBS ), everybody is different and what might work really well for one person might be less effective for someone else.  A factsheet on probiotics by the British Dietetic Association recommends taking probiotics for 4 weeks and, if they don’t seem to be having any effect, try another brand or stop taking them.

Feed your good gut bacteria

If you do want to try probiotics, it’s important to know that some are killed by acid in the stomach before they can reach the gut.  There’s not much point flooding your gut with good bacteria, unless you make sure they can survive.  That’s where prebiotics come in.  I only recently found out how important prebiotics are, so if you don’t know much about them, basically, prebiotics are food for probiotics and encourage them to multiply.  Prebiotics are carbohydrates found in fruit and vegetables.  Some of the best sources are onions, garlic, asparagus, artichoke and chicory.  The trouble is that these are also high FODMAP foods.  If any of them cause you problems, bananas and tomatoes may be a good alternative, or you can get prebiotic supplements.

Are probiotics and prebiotics the answer for IBS?

If you are considering trying probiotics and prebiotics to help your IBS, it’s good to take some advice from a dietitian or nutritional therapist experienced in helping with IBS.  As with the food you eat, though, what you put into your gut is only part of the story.  You probably know all too well how stress can cause your symptoms to flare up and how anxiety as well as food can upset your digestion.  Learning to manage your stress in healthy ways and to deal with anxiety and negative emotions is equally important in keeping your IBS symptoms under control.

When I’m seeing clients to help them with IBS, we always look at how they can reduce and/or manage their stress and at what negative thinking patterns might be contributing to making their symptoms worse.  Sometimes there are issues from childhood that need to be cleared.  The good news is that once clients have been able reduce their stress levels and change negative thinking to be more positive, it’s had a positive effect on their IBS.

Would you like to transform your IBS?

Contact me for a free, 30-minute phone consultation to find out how hypnotherapy can help IBS.  Phone 0208 546 2122 or e-mail anne@transforming-health.co.uk to book a time to talk.

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Mindfulness is great for dealing with stress, which is so often a major underlying factor in IBS.  It can actually help with IBS symptoms in another way too: mindful eating.

What is mindful eating?                               

Like any mindful activity, mindful eating is about focusing all your attention on it and being fully present in the moment:

• Don’t do anything else while eating.  Ignore your phone, switch off the TV or radio and just focus on your food and eating.  If you’re eating with other people, you could let them know that you’re going to be eating mindfully and explain that’s why you might not be so engaged in the conversation at times.
• Use all your senses, not just taste.  Notice the colours and shapes of the food and how it smells.  Pay attention to the sounds of the food.  Maybe some food is crunchy; maybe some food is sizzling as you serve it.
• Savour your food.  Notice the different tastes and textures as you eat.
• Chew 20 times, so you eat slowly.
• Don’t rush off after you’ve finished eating.  Stay sitting and let your food digest.  Have that conversation with the people you’re eating with.

Why does mindful eating help IBS symptoms?

If you’re constantly eating on-the-go, grabbing a quick sandwich before rushing on to the next thing, or eating while you’re working, scrolling on your phone or watching TV, your nervous system will be in action mode.  For your digestion to work well, you need to be in ‘rest & digest’ mode, rather than action or ‘fight or flight’ mode.  When you’re stressed in body or mind, the ‘fight or flight’ response is activated and interferes with any function in the body, which isn’t necessary for immediate survival.  Digestion is one of those functions.

When your digestive enzymes aren’t working properly to break down your food, your gut bacteria will have a field day and produce fermentation and gas, leading to the discomfort of bloating and trapped wind, among other things.

Mindful eating is a really good way to reduce stress levels and it also helps digestive enzymes in other ways.  Digestion starts in the brain and when you’re paying attention to your food and eating, it prepares the brain to know that the stomach is going to get food.  This stimulates the enzymes in saliva, the first stage in the digestive process.

Digestion works best when the stomach has small bits of food to deal with.  Saliva starts to break down the food and then chewing well will make sure that the food arrives in the stomach in a mushy form, which is easy for the stomach to digest.  If the stomach has to deal with larger bits of food, without the help of the salivary enzymes from eating too quickly and not chewing well, it can result in bloating and indigestion.

With IBS, it’s not just about what you eat, but how you eat

With IBS, the focus is very often on what foods are causing problems.  It’s important to consider the impact of how you eat and the role of stress as well.

In my years of working with clients with IBS, it’s been so rewarding to see how they have been able to alleviate their symptoms when they manage their stress better.  This has included mindful eating.  Many clients have been able to eat a wider range of food, without it causing the bloating, flatulence, cramps and other problems that they used to have.  Spending more time in ‘rest & digest’ mode, rather than ‘fight or flight’ mode really does help.

If you’d like to find out more about how hypnotherapy can help IBS, please book a free 30-minute phone or Zoom consultation with me.  Email anne@transforming-health.co.uk, or call 0208 546 2122.

Featured image by Pablo Merchan Montes on Unsplash

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