Diet is always crucial to your health. Deficiencies or excesses of particular components can lead to serious consequences. Therefore, you should take care of your diet, even if you are perfectly healthy. What about for people with various ailments? Diet is often one of the primary methods of treatment. Today we will look at the low-FODMAP diet, which is used in the course of IBS and SIBO. If these abbreviations are foreign to you, I strongly recommend reading on and you will learn everything!
Before we get into the diet, it's worth deciphering what FODMAP even means. As is usually the case, the acronym is derived from the English name. However, this time it also fits almost perfectly into the Polish translation. Let's get down to it letter by letter:
FODMAP therefore stands for fermentable oligo-, di-, monosaccharides and polyols. They all belong to the group of sugars. Consequently, a low FODMAP diet will involve limiting them. Just how to go about it? First, you need to know what products they are in.
Even if you know the breakdown of sugars, not all of them ferment easily. So it's worth taking a look to clear up any doubts:
The main premise of the low-FODMAP diet is very simple - limit products containing large amounts of fermentable sugars. However, in practice this can cause many problems. The list of products containing the sugars in question is very extensive. By eliminating them all from your diet, you run the risk of developing deficiencies. Therefore, you need to act individually and in stages.
The low FODMAP diet should last from 6 to 8 weeks, and in some cases a maximum of 12 weeks. Above all, phase 1 cannot be followed longer, as it leads to B vitamin deficiencies. After staying on a restrictive diet for a long time, it's a good idea to visit your doctor and get basic blood tests for deficiencies. You may find that supplementation of some vitamins and minerals is necessary as well. That's why it's so important to include as much variety in your diet as possible.
You will find a list of products broken down according to their FODMAP content below. From it you will learn what to eat and drink on such a diet, and what to avoid. I have marked products rich in FODMAPs as not recommended, and those with low FODMAP content as safe. Remember, however, that the unrecommended products should be eliminated only in the first phase of the diet (2-6 weeks), and then slowly test them. It may also be the case that some products with moderate FODMAP content acutely in your case will exacerbate concerns more strongly than some of the generally non-recommended ones.
I think it's worthwhile to address some concerns on this occasion. My clients often ask about specific products that are problematic for them.
FODMAP sugars should not cause any severe symptoms in healthy people. They exhibit prebiotic effects, so they promote the development of normal intestinal microflora. The products in which they are contained are most often beneficial to health. So who is the low-FODMAP diet designed for?
Such a diet was developed for people struggling with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). Why exactly in this case are they harmful? They cause an increase in osmotic pressure. This leads to an increase in the volume of food in the intestines. They are poorly digested and ferment only in the large intestine, causing a lot of gas.
They also provide food for the bacteria that inhabit your intestines. Under normal circumstances, this is very beneficial. However, it becomes a problem if you suffer from Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth Syndrome (SIBO). In this case, they also feed bacteria that have proliferated where they shouldn't.
It's worth knowing that FODMAP intolerance can affect both adults and children. If your child frequently reports abdominal pains, start watching them closely. Flatulence, gas or recurring diarrhea may indicate poor tolerance of fermentable sugars.