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    Diverticulitis Diet
    Diverticulitis Diet
    Diverticulitis Diet
    Ebook184 pages2 hours

    Diverticulitis Diet

    By Joan McClelland

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    About this ebook

    In the modern industrial world, a large proportion of the adult population suffers from diverticulitis. By the age of 60, more than 50% of us will suffer from the condition. Comfortable living and a soft diet magnify the problem. This vital work provives an easy to read description of the foods that affect this disorder and highlights the amazing positive effect of the right diet. Clear advice and more than 150 recipes.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWellhouse Publishing Limited
    Release dateJun 20, 2013
    ISBN9798201819866
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      Book preview

      Diverticulitis Diet - Joan McClelland

      Introduction

      If you are a Westerner that is, you live in North America, Western Europe, Australia or New Zealand and you are aged 50 or more, you are in the high-risk group for diverticular disorder. You had a 30 per cent likelihood at age 45, 40 per cent at 50 and 50 per cent plus when you hit 70. There are smaller areas of Western-type lifestyle, the likely sort for diverticulitis, among Jewish people all over the world, in modern Japan, and other sophisticated Asian countries like Singapore. It is a matter of soft living and a soft diet.

      The behaviour that leads to diverticular disorder is lack of exercise involving the abdominal muscles that normally keep your figure in trim, and the automatic muscles of the colon, the lower part of the digestive passage itself. Without stimulus this becomes slack and baggy, with little pockets of food waste, the diverticula, bulging out from it. A minimum of three of these qualifies for a diagnosis of diverticulosis. Infection in one or more little pouches is called diverticulitis.

      Diverticulosis and diverticulitis are the two forms of diverticular disorder. The former does not cause anything worse than discomfort, but diverticulitis is sharply painful and is often called left-sided appendicitis. The appendix is a blind alley, in fact a special diverticulum on the right side of the abdomen, and it is prone to stagnation of its contents and the development of infection. Adolescents and young adults are particularly susceptible to appendicitis, while the middle-aged and elderly more often get diverticulosis that develops into diverticulitis.

      For a detailed description and explanation of diverticular disease, see my book How to Cope Successfully with Diverticulitis, Wellhouse Publishing, Farnham, UK, 2001.

      The habits that make you vulnerable to diverticular disorder also lead to hiatus hernia at an age when the muscles of the digestive system are, like others, all becoming weaker and constipation is often beginning to be a problem. Increasing efforts are required to pass a motion.

      Constipation, the sluggish movement of food waste along the intestine, is frequently the first indication of diverticular disease and may be accompanied by hiatus hernia. It is enhanced by:

      faulty diet: too little fibre; too much fattening food with too little bulk, e.g. chocolate

      dehydration, from inadequate fluid intake (common in older people)

      rushed modern lifestyle with insufficient patience to give the gut time to act

      reduced mobility, often because of arthritis: ordinary muscular exercise stimulates the intestines

      frequent travel, as in commuting, which may make it difficult to get to the loo

      some medicines, for instance pain-killers, antidepressants or iron pills

      illnesses such as hypothyroidism or diabetes

      sex: women are affected three times as often as men, i.e. less muscle work

      increasing age with weaker muscles.

      The snags of modern living that underlie the current epidemic of obesity also impede the activity of the colon:

      being a couch-potato watching television

      being a mouse-potato - the only exercise is clicking with the right index finger!

      supermarket shopping - everything under one roof

      ready-made meals - extra sweet and palatable

      less smoking - reduces appetite (but not to be recommended!)

      cars - even for the shortest journey

      labour-saving tools - washing machines, vacuum cleaners etc.

      Symptoms of constipation are:

      bloating, discomfort

      backache, headache

      nausea

      passing a motion fewer than three times a week

      straining to pass a motion on at least 25 per cent of occasions

      haemorrhoids.

      How to Avoid Diverticular Disorder, Especially Diverticulitis, or to Lessen its Effects

      There are two main ploys: exercise and, most importantly, diet.

      Exercise

      This is simple, consisting of practising the use of the muscles of the abdomen, both internal and external. The external muscles are those that surround and support the abdomen, rather like a corset. They are exercised by alternately drawing them in, holding for a count of ten, then relaxing them, and lying on your back and sitting up or raising your legs. Standing up with straight legs and touching your toes. Repeat each of these exercises ten times. Ten times. General bodily exercise also tones up these muscles; for instance, walking briskly for 30 minutes daily or 40 minutes three times a week.

      Internal exercises use the muscles of the intestines themselves. You cannot tighten them voluntarily, but they can be stimulated by a diet that contains adequate amounts of fibre, giving them something solid to grip. This is the opposite of their slow, sluggish action in constipation. Fruit, especially citrus, and vegetables, especially the green, yellow and leafy types, provide a generous supply of fibre as well as vitamin C and antioxidants. Oats in particular and other wholegrain cereals are good sources of fibre.

      Diet is the major key to beating diverticulitis and is the main subject of this book.

      General Dietary Requirements

      General dietary requirements apply to everyone, whether or not you are focusing on diverticular problems. You need to have some of each of the three basic types of food:

      carbohydrates: fillers and the main suppliers of energy, they include bread, rice, cereals, pasta and potatoes

      proteins: necessary for growth and repair, these include foods derived from animal sources such as meat, fish, eggs and dairy produce, and vegetable products such as nuts and beans.

      fats: these provide concentrated nourishment, supplying more than twice as many calories as equivalent weights of protein or carbohydrate; they make other foods more palatable but easily lead to obesity

      fibre: this gives bulk to the diet.

      Your daily intake of these various classes of food should be roughly divided as:

      1/3 fruit and vegetables: 5 servings daily

      1/3 bread, cereals, potatoes, pasta, rice: 6 servings daily

      1/6 meat, fish, eggs and vegetable proteins such as beans

      1/6 milk, dairy produce

      1/8 fats and oils

      Some foods and drinks provide calories but little else neither proteins, vitamins nor minerals. They are often supersweet, cooked in excess fats and oils, and in the case of drinks, often fizzy or with alcohol. They can be very palatable but should be eaten sparingly as they are valueless. In the case of fats, the saturated (animal) types should be avoided as far as possible.

      Fibre provides no energy (fuel) but is valuable for its action in exercising the muscles of the gut. Since it passes through the body without being absorbed, it has little nutritional value.

      Government advice on alcohol is 1 glass daily for women and 2 glasses for men, but a little wine in middle age may reduce the risk of heart disease. Variety in the diet is necessary to ensure an adequate supply of micronutrients, substances necessary for health but required or only very small amounts: vitamins and minerals. Zinc and magnesium are among the latter.

      Vitamins come in two types: water-soluble and fat-soluble. Vitamin C, ascorbic acid, is the commonest of the former, and is found in fruit and vegetables, while fat-soluble vitamin D enables the body to absorb calcium and maintain strong bones. This is the sunshine vitamin that we can manufacture in our skin with the help of ultraviolet light. There is a danger of running short of vitamin D with increasing age and lack of outdoor activity.

      Deficient Diet in the Apparently Rich, Industrialized Countries

      Between 4 and 25 per cent of the population in the European Union are living below the poverty line. Their babies are undersized at birth, and their older children shorter and less often breast-fed. As adults they tend to be overweight, with more lipids (fat) in their blood. They eat less lean meat, fruit and vegetables and wholemeal bread than the rest of us, and more fried foods, chips and sugary foods. This type of diet is likely to be deficient in:

      total energy, i.e. especially protein but with an excess of calories

      folates, found in liver, wheatgerm, soya, lettuce, eggs and cheese, vegetables

      vitamin C, the most important antioxidant, fighting wear-and-tear

      vitamin D, still a public health risk in Britain

      vitamin B12, cooperates with folate to make DNA

      iron, especially in women aged 15 to 50, affecting 33 per cent in Britain and causing definite anaemia in 1 per cent

      calcium, a lack of which causes osteoporosis, common in middle age onwards.

      Drugs that may cause malnutrition are:

      aspirin and NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatories) causing bleeding in the stomach and loss of iron

      digoxin, producing loss of appetite and could cause anorexia

      purgatives, leading to loss of half-digested food and potassium

      chemotherapy, which could cause anorexia

      diuretics (water tablets), possible loss of potassium

      slimming tablets, for instance amphetamines, increasing energy and cutting down appetite.

      The Glycaemic Index

      The glycaemic index (GI) is a measure of the amount of sugar or its equivalent in your blood. The syllable glyc refers to the sugar, glucose, and aem means blood as in haemorrhage. Different foods have different glycaemic indices. Glucose is the standard with a glycaemic index of 100. The three main classes of nutrients, the macronutrients (macro = big) are proteins, carbohydrates and fats.

      Proteins are used for building and repair work, while carbohydrates are the main fuel that produces the energy on which the body runs. They come in two main types: simple and complex. Simple carbohydrates are the sugars: for instance fructose in fruit, lactose in milk, sucrose, which is ordinary cane sugar, and glucose, the basic type. Sugars are rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream, giving an immediate boost to the blood sugar level and sometimes upsetting its control mechanism.

      Complex carbohydrates include any except the sugars, for instance starches, and the carbohydrates in whole grains, fruits and vegetables. They are absorbed much more slowly than the simple type because they need digesting first.

      A healthy diet with lashings of fruit and vegetables is beneficial to your body, especially the diverticular area of the bowels. This is because of their need for adequate supplies of fibre (see page 106) as a stimulus to functioning. Also, a wide variety of natural foods ensure that you get enough of vitamins B3, B6 and C in particular and also such minerals as zinc, iron and magnesium. Only tiny amounts are needed, but these are vital to your survival. The most valuable foods in this respect are nuts, seeds, oily fish like sardines, dark green vegetables, onions, peas and beans, asparagus and the brassica family. Oat bran is useful because of the soluble fibre it contains. This is the type that is important for checking the level of cholesterol in the blood, to the benefit of the whole body, but notably the heart and arteries. Unchecked, the harmful variety of cholesterol, LDL, builds up, blocking the blood vessels; it also leads to the modern plague of obesity.

      Satiety, a feeling of fullness, is brought on by potatoes, boiled rather than chipped, but the fats from animal sources, for instance in dairy products and some meat dishes, stimulate the appetite despite their high nutritive value, more than twice that of equal weights of protein or carbohydrate. The body is designed to require

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