What is Irritable Bowel Syndrome?
Irritable bowel syndrome is characterised by the chronic abdominal pain and discomfort often followed by diarrhoea, flatulance and bloating. Often mistaken with allergy to gluten or lactose intolerance which results in removal of these products from our diet. Although the exact cause remains unknown there are effective methods on how to deal with unpleasant disturbances that accompany this desease.
Firstly we should discuss and understand the role of our intestine and microbiota that live there. Intestine is one of the most important organs in digestive tract that helps the passage of digested food until the rectus where we get rid off the materia which was not absorbed. The microbiota that live there maintain the homeostasis of our organisms. In 3 words we can say that microbiota has 3 important roles; defensive, metabolic and trophic. Don’t forget that lack of equlibrium between all the species that live there have an impact on our well-being.
British Dietetic Association in 2016 has shown that there is a solution to all those who suffer from irritable bowel syndrome, the solution is FODMAP diet known also as the low fermentable oligosaccharide, disaccharide, monosaccharide and polyol (FODMAP) diet. It is evidenced based on the fact that this kind of alimentation significantly improve all the disturbances connected to IBS. In practice it is a diet which is based on products which contain low amount of the sugars mentioned above. Where we can find those sugars?
- Oligo-saccharides- pulses, beans, peas, wheat, onion, inulin
- Di- saccharides- mostly milk
- Mono- saccharides- honey, apples, fructose
- Polyols- plums, peaches, cauliflower, mushrooms, sugar free sweets( Examples of polyols are sorbitol and xylotol)
For sure You will ask yourself what you can eat in this case. Well, here you will find some important rules to follow.
http://www.ibsdiets.org/fodmap-diet/fodmap-food-list/
Recent research from 2017 undoubtedly prove the benefits of trying low FODMAP diet, however,low FODMAP diet leads to profound changes in the microbiota so the duration and clinical relevance of this diet remains as yet unknown.
Written by Agnieszka Tokarz