Crohn's Disease & Ulcerative Colitis Support Group
Crohn's disease is a systemic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) of unknown cause, that results in chronic inflammation of the intestinal tract. It can affect the entire gastrointestinal tract from mouth to anus, and can also cause complications outside of the gastrointestinal tract. There is no known medical or surgical cure for Crohn's disease, but there are many medical...
I was going to lunch with my girlfriend to a local subshop and I got the steak and cheese sub. Very bland, nothing on it except for the steak and cheese. Being very dehydrated, I went and filled the 32oz cup with Powerade twice, downing it without really thinking about it.
About an hour and a half later I was having really bad bloody diahrrea and it dawned on me that maybe the fructose in the drink triggered a bad flare. I came across a book my dad bought me, called the "Self Help Way To Treat Colitis and Other IBS Conditions" and in it the doctor describes the mechanism in which we IBD suffers consume fermentable sugars that the bacteria eat and create irritating byproducts.
I have since gone cold turkey off of anything with high fructose corn syrup and am feeling tremendously better. I already know that i do not make the appropriate enzyme for digesting milk sugar (lactose) and probably do not make the enzyme insufficient quantity to absorb fructose either.
There are essentially three main sugars: sucrose, glucose and then fructose. Glucose is animal and plant sugar and is readily taken up directly into the bloodstream. Fructose is commonly found in honey and fresh fruits. (HFCS is synthetically made and is basically synthetic honey.) Sucrose is glucose + fructose, and can be relatively easily converted into its components and absorbed into the bloodstream. Fructose by itself seems to be a problem sugar, it has to be converted to glucose first before the body can use it. The remaining fructose is then dumped into the colon. Lactose is glucose + galactose.
Some fun facts about fructose:
- its 3x more sweet than sucrose (table sugar),
- HEALTHY people can digest up to 25 grams of fructose a day
- undigested fructose is digested by colon bacteria and it can create alcohols, lactic acid and acetic acid, which all irritate the colon!
- there is no enzyme supplement like Lactase available but consuming dextrose (glucose) with fructose can help the absorption process
-up to 30% of the population suffer from Dietary Fructose Intolerance (see http://www.uihealthcare.org/Clinic.aspx?id=3537)
Also, if you notice, when fructose is consumed with glucose, it is more favorably absorbed for some reason. If you do intend to consume a fruit, make sure that the glucose to fructose ratio is high. Fruits like oranges and apples have a low ratio, making them harder to digest, and yet we eat them anyway.
Anyone else identified fructose as a potential trigger?
About an hour and a half later I was having really bad bloody diahrrea and it dawned on me that maybe the fructose in the drink triggered a bad flare. I came across a book my dad bought me, called the "Self Help Way To Treat Colitis and Other IBS Conditions" and in it the doctor describes the mechanism in which we IBD suffers consume fermentable sugars that the bacteria eat and create irritating byproducts.
I have since gone cold turkey off of anything with high fructose corn syrup and am feeling tremendously better. I already know that i do not make the appropriate enzyme for digesting milk sugar (lactose) and probably do not make the enzyme insufficient quantity to absorb fructose either.
There are essentially three main sugars: sucrose, glucose and then fructose. Glucose is animal and plant sugar and is readily taken up directly into the bloodstream. Fructose is commonly found in honey and fresh fruits. (HFCS is synthetically made and is basically synthetic honey.) Sucrose is glucose + fructose, and can be relatively easily converted into its components and absorbed into the bloodstream. Fructose by itself seems to be a problem sugar, it has to be converted to glucose first before the body can use it. The remaining fructose is then dumped into the colon. Lactose is glucose + galactose.
Some fun facts about fructose:
- its 3x more sweet than sucrose (table sugar),
- HEALTHY people can digest up to 25 grams of fructose a day
- undigested fructose is digested by colon bacteria and it can create alcohols, lactic acid and acetic acid, which all irritate the colon!
- there is no enzyme supplement like Lactase available but consuming dextrose (glucose) with fructose can help the absorption process
-up to 30% of the population suffer from Dietary Fructose Intolerance (see http://www.uihealthcare.org/Clinic.aspx?id=3537)
Also, if you notice, when fructose is consumed with glucose, it is more favorably absorbed for some reason. If you do intend to consume a fruit, make sure that the glucose to fructose ratio is high. Fruits like oranges and apples have a low ratio, making them harder to digest, and yet we eat them anyway.
Anyone else identified fructose as a potential trigger?
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Look at what my best friend did with my picture!
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We all have 24 hours in a day. How we spend these hours is important. Watching a little bit of a video about how sitting affects us made me aware of how much sitting and laying down I do. Gonna have to work on that.Your turn. Tell me another truth.
Beef and cheese are really hard on anyone's digestive system. Drinks with junk in them are obviously not great, particularly in that large of quantity. Breads are carbs which turn to sugar. There's not one thing here that would make one's GI system say, hey thanks for being so kind to me.
I'm not a diet fanatic by any stretch of the imagination but I do get cause and effect which is that when I eat like that or drink a lot of weird stuff, chances are I won't feel good, regardless of IBD.
I think we lose sight of the bigger picture sometimes.
@JeanCarlin - I can eat red meat and chicken just fine. We still need our protein and its hard to find a suitable replacement. I tried different protein shakes like Syntha-6 but they make me sick with all the lactose in it.
According to Dr DeLamar Gibbons, the author of "Self Help Way To Treat Colitis and Other IBS Conditions", those of us afflicted with IBD are hyper fat absorbers. He recommends taking a large dose of Calcium with meals with fat (like marbled steak) to reduce the fat that is absorbed during digestion. He also states that carbs are converted into simple sugars and are readily absorbed into your blood stream to be used as energy.
Maybe I should have started a topic on this book instead of fructose, but I thought the fructose trigger was very important because its so ubiquitous in the food we eat. A small amount in various foods ads up and may add up very quickly to whatever amount is intolerable; and therefore food for bacteria to ferment. Its also important to note, that some forms of fiber are also food for bacteria and can also cause irritation due to fermentation.
I tried a food diary once but I was too sick at the time to notice anything other than food = stomach ache!!
Now I am living a relatively 'normal' life I find that I can't really eat cow's milk cheese and I've been a vegetarian for the past 8 years anyway. I personally think Quorn is amazing (do you get this in America?) as it's really high in protein, low in fat and I seem to be able to eat it all of the time, even in a flare up.
Thanks for all the info, it was really interesting and very glad you're feeling better xx
It's made from fungus and eggs. Yikes!
Now, the powdered Gatorade has sucrose and glucose in it. The bottled drinks contain HFCS. Sierra Mist Natural. Pepsi Throwback, Dublin Dr Pepper, Mountain Dew Throwback and 7-up retro have sucrose or cane sugar. I agree with you, the mexican cokes have cane sugar (sucrose).
Fruit juices are going to have high concentrations of fructose in them. especially juices like orange juice and apple juice.
Nifty list of foods without HFCS:
http://highfructosehigh.com/no-hfcs/
This chart shows the Fructose to Glucose content of fruits:
http://foodintolerances.org/downloads/fructose-food-table.aspx
After giving away/throwing away anything containing high fructose corn syrup and living this way for a few days, my diarrhea finally stopped. This was not possible before without prednisone. I was very close to getting on Remicade, but I couldnt afford the co-pay.
One thing to note, I have been eating foods with lots of potassium and taking a large calcium supplement with anything with fat. I have not cut back on eating meat or cheese or anything that RMB pointed out.
Another thing, a diet high in animal protein cause an acid push in the body, the body likes a slightly alkaline state and will do it's darnedest to stay that way. How does it do this? By puling calcium from our bones; not good. That might be a reason that the book you are reading suggests high doses of Calcium when eating meat.
also, KewlB, I love Quorn!