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NetWellness provides the highest quality health information and education services created and evaluated by faculty of our partner universities.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
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NetWellness provides the highest quality health information and education services created and evaluated by faculty of our partner universities.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
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Diet and Nutrition |
Stomach problems06/23/2009 |
I started living very healthy since 3/1. I excercize (lift weights, spinning, treadmill, & eliptical) I eat a ton of vegtables and fruits, salmon, boneless skinless chicken. My diet is very high in Fiber..for ex: bran cereal breakfast, fiber bar for snack, yorgurt and fruit for lunch, carrots and hummas. apple for snack, dinner chicken or fish with tossed salad and lowfat dressing. 2 sugar free fudge bars for snack. I am extremely constipated, extremely gassy, also I drink aprox 48 oz of water a day along w/ 3 cups coffee. why am i in so much misery?
A short answer would be that the extra fiber in your diet may be causing your constipation and excess gas. However, there are other factors that may be contributing. If you are female, hormone level changes before your period sometimes change bowel habits to more constipation. If your healthy diet includes increased use of milk and other unfermented dairy products (your eating routine doesn't suggest this is the case), one of the more common causes of excess flatulence and gassiness may be due to a lactose intolerance. (You don't have enough lactase enzyme in your intestine to digest the milk sugar, lactose). You could try adding a dietary enzyme supplement (such as Lactaid) before meals containing milk. You may have added some other foods to your healthy diet, and changed your eating style and lifestyle in such a way that increased gas is the result.
Consider making the following changes if necessary:
1. Don't chew gum. Gum chewers swallow more air.
2. Avoid foods with sorbitol or other sugar alcohols like xilitol, maltitol, lactitol, etc. These substances are digested poorly, make their way to the lower intestinal tract and are digested by the flora in your lower intestine; one of the byproducts is gas. Many 'sugar free' foods contain sorbitol and other sugar alcohols (your sugar free fudge bars, breath mints, sugar free cough drops, sugar free gum).
3. Don't drink through a straw, do chew your food well and don't talk with food in your mouth. These practices will mean you swallow less air.
4. Avoid caffeine, chocolate (contains some caffeine and related compounds) like your fudge bars, and carbonation. Carbonated beverages incorporate gas into your stomach and intestines. Caffeine and chocolate are mild diuretics and will draw water out of the intestine.
5. Drink enough liquid. Though you appear to drink enough liquid for someone with a lower fiber intake than you apparently have now, increased fiber intake should be accompanied by increased fluid intake to avoid constipation.
6. Exercise is generally good for good bowel function, but excess exercise after food may divert body resources to the muscles and away from the intestine. Food isn't moved along the intestine as fast, more water is reabsorbed into the body, thereby reducing the total intestinal volume of food, and the intestine has to work harder to move the food along. The possible outcomes are cramps and constipation. Make sure you stay hydrated during exercise.
7. Take a supplemental digestive enzyme containing alpha galactosidase (such as Beano) when you eat foods containing dried beans (like your hummus), soy, or the cabbage family (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, turnip, rutabaga). These foods have a type of fiber in them that humans can't digest, but the bacteria in our intestinal tract can. By taking the enzyme the linkages are digested before the food gets to the bacteria, so the bacteria don't digest it and produce any gas byproduct. You may have to take more than you think because if you eat a lot of problematic foods at once you'll need enough of the enzyme to work on each food. You may find that other foods like corn and onions could be giving you gas also.
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Sharron Coplin, MS, RD, LD Lecturer, Food & Nutrition Department of Human Nutrition College of Education and Human Ecology The Ohio State University |
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