Food and FGID

When talk about FGID (Functional Gastrointestinal Disorder), you must think I will soon talk about FODMAP (Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides and Polyol) right? 

Nah, not so soon that we jump into these poorly absorbed sugars.

Because FOOD is not just about poorly absorbed sugars :)

Food is composed of a combination of nutrients, rather than a single agent.

I think for many many years already, we all know that food plays a role in our digestive problem. But the role of food/nutrition in controlling gastrointestinal problem has not been clearly defined. I always hear the family and friends telling these: 

• I get diarrhea after drinking cow's milk, so I choose to drink homemade soy milk. Though no more diarrhea, but my stomach gets so distended like 3 months pregnant. 
• Oh I cannot eat too much watermelon, the going-to-toilet-to-pass-motion effect is very fast. (this is my mom haha)
• One small piece of mango is okay for me. But multiple small pieces, then I will be asking for troubles. (my boss's problem :p) 
• My stomach has got a lots of wind lately, keep on passing out gas below and this makes me feel so embarrassed. I tried stopping my Oat Bran powder, now the volume and frequency of gases pass out have been tremendously improved! I just can't figure out why is this so!
• I myself can drink milk, I have got no milk intolerance. But multiple times in the morning if I were to drink caffeine-containing drink, I will soon be finding toilet to pass loose stools. (this is my experience lol)

While I was a student, I have received very little training about food and digestive disorders. I do learn about how digestion of food occurs in the mouth, the passage of food in the esophagus, the digestion in stomach, small intestine and what are the works that colon do. Unfortunately, the dietary recommendations for FGIDs have been very basic or what my boss always says: Diet for digestive problems has been very rudimentary. Most of the time, we give recommendations based on experiences, or we stop taking so much of that type of my-problem-food based on common sense (like now, I stop taking caffeine-containing drink while empty stomach) rather than credible scientific evidence. 

If you're interested too, kindly search this review online!

Previously, I only do disease related dietary managements. When a person without any diseases comes and asks me about how this particular food causes digestive problems for him or what are the foods that can cause gastrointestinal upset for him, I cannot navigate and fine-tune his problem properly using diet/food therapy! Slowly, I started to gain interests in how food is related to digestive problems. 

Occasionally, for those with digestive disorders, it is not only FODMAP will irritate their guts. But a few of my patients, the type of fibres turned out to be the real culprit. There are so many types of fibres, other than the well-known insoluble and soluble fibre types. Previously I have been only thinking about: Oh! soluble fibre can help patients with cholesterol problem. But, I haven't really look into how soluble fibre can cause gastrointestinal upset for some people. Glad that now I understand way more than its role in lowering cholesterol.

I am still learning much about dietary measures for FGID patients. Wonderful news that scientific evidences of food for functional disorders have been increasingly published for these recent years. This means more and more guidelines for dietitians. And we shall no longer need to swim hard in the murky waters of "how food is related to gastrointestinal symptoms" :)