5 myths about diet and Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Hi everyone! Sorry It’s been a while since my last post! I’ve been busy going back to China and now I’m getting ready to return to England permanently which is very exciting! One thing I’ve been busy with that I’m incredibly proud of is creating a facebook group for those with inflammatory bowel disease who are interested in healthy living.It’s grown to over 120 members in a relatively short amount of time which makes more convinced than ever about the role of diet in crohn’s and ulcerative colitis.
So today we’re going to tackle 5 diet myths about Inflammatory Bowel Disease! These are common things I often hear fellow sufferers say which are just not true!

MYTH 1: Diet has nothing to do with IBD. My doctor told me so….

The easiest way to address this myth is to remind yourself that diet has something to do with everything that happens in our body. Of course it’s not a cure or a cause necessarily but even at a basic level a well planned diet can help with things like fatigue (a common problem with IBD) and nutritional deficiencies. There’s also growing evidence that it can help with the bacterial balance of our gut which can cause digestive discomfort, flares and trigger autoimmune conditions (as 80% of our immune system is in the gut!)

There’s no one size fits all but scientists are studying diet and IBD more and more. For example Stanford is undertaking a clinic trial on the role of the Specific Carbohydrate diet in Crohn’s.

MYTH 2: I can’t eat fruit and vegetables, they make me ill.

I know exactly where you are coming from if you are thinking this because I used to think it too! I’d clutch my stomach after a salad, or a big sunday dinner and think ‘It’s the vegetables!’ But let me tell you something now: you absolutely can eat fruit and vegetables!

This is such a wide (and crucial) food group that it’s extremely unlikely you can’t tolerate some kinds of fruit and vegetables in carefully planned forms. The reason they are so tricky as they’re jam-packed full of insoluble fibre. Usually this is a good thing, it keeps our colon healthy but with inflammatory bowel disease it can irritate inflammation that’s already there. Yet, there’s plenty you can do to gradually get some goodness back in your diet such as…

– Start with fruit and veggies high in soluble fibre that have a much gentler effect on the colon. These include things like well-cooked carrots, pumpkin, squash, banana and apple. These are well tolerated by most with IBD and some are included on low-residue diets.

-Breakdown that fibre into manageable forms like cooking well, blending into soups and finally juicing. Bear in mind that when done properly, juicing contains no fibre and therefore you should be able to consume a wide variety of fruit and veg. Read my guide about juicing with IBD here.

MYTH 3: I don’t need to give up gluten, my doctor already tested me for it.

 Coeliacs disease is an auto-immune disease that can be tested for by blood test and/or a bowel biopsy. What lots of people don’t realise is that a new term ‘non-coeliacs gluten intolerance’ has been termed for all the people who react badly to the gluten protein but don’t have coeliacs. The bad news is you can’t test for it but the good news is it’s becoming much easier to eliminate gluten temporarily from your diet to see if it effects you.

There’s a huge number of us IBDers who have problems with gluten and this is why almost any diet for digestive health (such as Paleo and SCD) eliminates it. Let me explain why…. If you have an intestine that’s full of lesions/ulcers, it becomes weak and more permeable then a normal gut. This means things can get through it that usually would be stopped and these leak into the blood stream (hence why it’s often called ‘leaky gut’). One of these things can be food particles that aren’t properly digested and gluten is notorious for this. As gluten is tricky for us to break down anyways, a healthy gut would reject the gluten particle until it was completely broken down. Yet a weak guts allow these molecules in whole which can then trigger a reaction. It’s thought that many people with autoimmune diseases have leaky guts that can then trigger immune reactions. Therefore, even if you’ve dismissed the role of gluten previously, it’s worth trying to eliminate it for a 2 week period to see if it helps.

MYTH 4:Everytime I diet it cause a flare!

Often people find diets cause a flare because their attempt at healthy choices can cause problems. Switching to low fat products, e.g. low sugar drinks and snacks, sometimes means an increased consumption of sweeteners which have a laxative effect. Cutting down carbs can often reduce the helpful kind of fibre and raw salads increase the irritating kind of insoluble fibre. This causes people to rush back to their usual diet declaring dieting impossible. Yet there’s plenty of ways to eat IBD friendly and reduce fat. For example a healthy breakfast choice might be gluten free porridge with almond milk. Lunch might be a sweet potatoe, chicken and some dairy free mayonaise.

MYTH 5: I need to eat read meat for my anemia.

People with IBD often suffer from anemia, both due to blood loss and reduction of production of Vitamin B which is made in the gut. Red meat can play a part in boosting iron levels, but also be aware it takes an incredibly long time to digest: 12 hours in total. Therefore if constipation is a problem, red meat might make it worse. In turn, cheap cuts of meat where animals are raised in poor conditions can contain things like antibiotics which may unknowingly effect the bacteria balance in your gut. The best thing is to eat grass-fed cuts of meat earlier in the day and plenty of non-meat sources of iron like well cooked or blended broccoli, chickpeas blended into a hummus and tofu. Although these are less readily absorbed, eating them with Vitamin C can help. As can taking a Spatone supplement, which contains iron enriched water.

I hope you enjoyed this article! If you have IBD, IBS or an autoimmune disease and are looking to make some diet changes, please click here to find out about how to get a free 30 minute consultation with me (a qualified nutritional therapist with crohn’s disease)and start working on your gut health today! Alternatively you can pop your email in the contact box that comes up when you enter the site or drop me a quick email at: jfarmer@abalancedbelly.co.uk