People who have been experiencing alternating diarrhea and constipation, pain, excessive gas, and stomach bloating may be interested to know that their symptoms may be due to exacerbated stress. Other symptoms that commonly accompany those primary symptoms include weakness, palpitations, back pain, faintness, headache, fatigue, and heartburn. If most of these apply to you, then you are one among the 20 million Americans who suffer from Irritable Bowel Syndrome or IBS.
What is IBS?
IBS is a functional motility disease affecting the large and small intestines without causing real structural damage to the intestines. This condition is usually not dangerous and does not lead to more extreme diseases such as malignancy (however, there might be a relationship between IBS and the beginning of diverticulosis). Knowing the factors that aggravate the condition and knowing how to control the stressors can bring about positive outcomes.
Factors that cause and aggravate IBS include hormones, drugs, diet, or, emotional stresses such as resentment, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive behavior, hysteria, and depression. Typical psychosocial situations related to IBS are excessive anxiety over daily matters, over worrying, death of a loved one, or marital discord. IBS is a condition that affects people around the ages of 20 to 40 and affects women more than men (3:1 to men). Some experts believe that aggressive childhood toilet training can result in people who are fastidious, punctual, narrow minded and who suffer from severe bowel problems.
General Eating Principles for IBS Sufferers:
• Select the proper food combinations: avoid a combination of protein, sugar, starch. Also avoid consuming several kinds of foods at one time. Eat just one kind of starch per meal. Instead of raw vegetables, consume steamed vegetables.
• Slowly eat your foods. Chew your foods well. Never eat while watching TV or reading and eat in a peaceful atmosphere
• Consume a high fiber diet and foods with high complex carbohydrates
Recommended Foods:
• Rice porridge, banana, ripe peaches minus the skin, applesauce, grated raw apple, papaya, grated raw apple, papaya, steamed squash and zucchini, flax seed tea, figs, pumpkin, squash, mashed and steamed parsnips, okra, cooked carrots, and potato broth.
• Flax seed powder, psyllium seed powder, slippery elm gruel, miso soup
• Foods rich in water-soluble fiber: Some IBS sufferers may benefit from fiber. The following are that have fiber that are less likely to provide sensitivity reactions and the likeliest to provide benefits – vegetables, brown rice, legumes, oat bran, guar gum, pectin, flax seed, rye, barley, and psyllium seed husks. In most cases wheat bran usually exacerbates the condition and is ineffective in lessening inflammation and irritation.
• Foods rich in omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids: flaxseed oil, black currant, oil, evening primrose oil, cold water fish, seed oils, and vegetable, nut.
Foods Not Recommended for IBS Sufferers
Despite the fact that real food allergies occur less than previously claimed, the occurrence of food intolerance or sensitivities IBS sufferers seems to be substantial with the reduction of symptoms when the food in question is removed from the diet; some scientists think that the aggravations caused by food reactions are likelier to happen when at least 3.5 oz. of the harmful food is consumed on every day.
Foods that most commonly provoke IBS symptoms include foods that contain carrageenan, dairy, corn, and wheat. Other foods to avoid include salty foods, rich foods, fatty foods, spicy foods, hot sauces, alcohol, oranges, caffeine, coffee, legumes, soybeans, corn, processed and refined foods, sweet foods, sugar, meat, and peanuts.
One of the most important components in an IBS comprehensive treatment program is obviously diet. Stress releasing techniques, herbal therapies, acupuncture and other modes of treatment all help promote the normal functioning of the digestive tract. People will be deprived of the quality and energy in life without a properly functioning digestive system.
Steven Goldfarb is a board certified and licensed acupuncturist and practitioner of alternative medicine. He is also the founder of Goldfarb Chiropractic and Acupuncture Center in West Orange, NJ.