April 03

Don’t Be Irritable
While it may seem like an embarrassing subject, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is also embarrassingly common. This uncomfortable condition afflicts up to two out of every ten adults at some point in their lives.

By Carl Lowe

   Many individuals who have IBS are resigned to suffering frequent intestinal difficulties without much in the way of help. Not only does it often take them years to learn what actually ails them, but conventional medicine often is unable to offer satisfactory solutions to their digestive problems. But natural methods and self-knowledge can help IBS sufferers cope with this life-disrupting condition.
   According to Bernard M. Collett, PhD, a specialist in preventive health care, IBS “has been called America’s hidden health problem, and it is. It has been ranked as the second leading cause of worker absenteeism, second only to the common cold.” It’s also an expensive problem: IBS presents a health care bill of more than $25 billion a year. In Dr. Collett’s view, and the view of many other experts, our modern diet of refined grains is a big part of the blame for the widespread occurrence of IBS.

Find Some Fiber
   What’s wrong with eating meals filled with refined grains like white flour and white rice? These foods have had their fibrous outer coverings removed. Without fiber, our digestive tracts, which have apparently been designed with fiber in mind, sputter and stall, causing pain and difficulties.
A long list of research shows that fiber, the indigestible carbohydrates in plants, possesses a long list of health benefits. Although it isn’t absorbed by your digestive tract, fiber feeds the beneficial bacteria that live there and helps move wastes out of your system. Fiber keeps the intestinal tract functioning at optimal capacity.
   As Dr. Collett notes, “We Americans have a propensity for fast, convenient eating, usually with too much of the wrong kinds of fats, plenty of empty calories and very little fiber. With this kind of diet, given time, our body, and more specifically, our digestive tract, may begin to enlighten us with signals of dysfunction that indicate all is not well.
   “... IBS may be a problem of maladjustment to a radically altered food supply. Prior to the industrial revolution, we Americans ate much more basically . . . vegetables, fruits, whole grains and lean meat. Today, in contrast, our diet is highly skewed toward refined flour, saturated fats, processed oils and greatly increased sugar consumption.”

In a Fiber Mood
   In taking extra fiber, you may also help improve your mood as well as your digestion.
A study at Cardiff University’s School of Psychology in England found that people who ate a high fiber diet suffered less emotional distress, thought more clearly, possessed an overall more positive mood, fell asleep more easily and had less depression than people who ate hardly any fiber at all.
   In relieving this kind of stress, fiber contributes to the emotional stability that can ease IBS.
If you have ever tried to eat and digest your food while immersed in uncomfortable emotional turmoil, you’ve experienced firsthand the havoc that anger, sadness, stress and humiliation can wreak on your digestion. In a similar fashion, stress and negative emotions have long been thought to contribute to IBS and its subsequent digestive discomforts.
   For instance researchers at University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada, questioned about two dozen women regarding their emotional lives in an effort to begin to elucidate links between emotional abuse and IBS. The result: Researchers turned up clear evidence that psycho-social factors play a role in IBS. (Previously, IBS had also been associated with sexual abuse.)
   The investigation showed that women who try to suppress their feelings about their emotionally abusive relationships, and mistakenly blame themselves for being abused, are more likely to suffer IBS (Psychosomatic Medicine, Jan/Feb 2000).
   “The self-blaming and self-silencing behaviors that tended to be associated with emotional abuse in this study probably cause stress increases,” said Brenda B. Toner, PhD, who co-authored the study.

Watch What You Eat
   Many folks with IBS find their distress starts after eating specific foods. These so-called “trigger foods” differ from person to person, but can include alcohol, caffeine, dairy foods, fatty foods, such gassy items as beans and cabbage, and products made with sorbitol, an artificial sweetening agent. IBS can also result from gluten intolerance, an unhappy intestinal reaction to a protein found in such grains as wheat, rye and barley.
   Watch the way you eat, too. Dine slowly to avoid taking in excess air, and eat smaller meals so that your intestines don’t have to handle too much material at once.

Anti-IBS Supplements
   Other research shows that the omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil may ease IBS. A study in Grenada, Spain, on laboratory animals, indicates that eating more of those kinds of fats may ease digestive inflammation. These Spanish researchers studied ulcerative colitis, an inflammation in the colon believed by some experts to be linked to IBS that can cause chronic stomach pain as well as bloody diarrhea. They also analyzed cases of Crohn’s disease, an intestinal condition which results in inflammation in the small intestine.
   To test whether omega-3s could soothe the intestines, researchers fed animals various kinds of diets with varying amounts of fish oil. The animals fed a diet that contained large amounts of fish oil enjoyed much better digestive health and less inflammation (Jrnl of Nut, 1/02).
The researchers concluded that the modern diet, with its vast quantities of items fried in vegetable oils, may contribute to digestive malfunctions.

Herbal Help
   Other research demonstrates that the herb arrowroot can help relieve IBS (Ar Gastroenterol 2000 Jan-Mar; 37(1):20-4). In a study at Leicester, England, people suffering long-term diarrhea, constipation and stomach pain found relief with arrowroot.
   These scientists came to the following conclusion: “Arrowroot is an effective treatment for diarrhea. Its action could be explained by several theories which relate to an increase in fecal bulk and thus a more efficient bowel action.”
   The exact causes of IBS remain a mystery. But by eating more fiber, using herbal supplements and controlling the stress in your life, you may also finally retain control over your misbehaving digestive tract.

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