Читать книгу The Good Gut Guide: Help for IBS, Ulcerative Colitis, Crohn's Disease, Diverticulitis, Food Allergies and Other Gut Problems - Stephanie Zinser - Страница 40

Diet: Look at your eating and drinking habits and try and identify areas that you can modify to reduce your ‘gas intake’. Try the following:

Eat and drink more slowly. This reduces the amount of air you’ll swallow.

Try to identify and cut out foods that give you wind. Some foods are notorious for their gassiness – onions (especially fried), baked beans, whole grains and ‘vegetarian’ diets. Other causes are not so well known; fructose, not only present in fruit juices and drinks, but also found in wheat and artichokes, can increase your gas load.

Avoid dairy foods if you think you may be lactase deficient. The enzyme lactase is necessary to digest lactose (milk sugar) properly and some people – mostly those of Mediterranean, African, Asian and Native American heritage – don’t always produce enough lactase, with the result that undigested milk sugars ferment within the gut, producing wind. Lactase supplements can help in these situations.

Starches – with the exception of rice and rice flour – produce gas when broken down in the intestine. Use rice instead of potato or wheat-based carbohydrates.

Avoid chewing gum and sucking hard sweets as they make you swallow more often (as does smoking).

Avoid sorbitol-based sweeteners and products containing sorbitol – they can be found in sugar-free products like mints, for instance.

See your dentist: Badly fitting dentures encourage air to be swallowed, so get your dentures checked if they feel loose.

‘Anti-gas’ preparations: Remedies containing simethicone – for example, Rennie Deflatine, Setlers Wind-eze®, Maalox (various types) and Mylanta II (US) – help by combining small wind bubbles in the stomach that are then more easily burped up. (Note that some of these products, for instance, Remegel Wind Relief, also contain sorbitol – see above.) Activated charcoal tablets can help reduce colon wind, and Beano® (available in the US) may help digest the sugars found in beans and many vegetables, thereby reducing gas.

Herbal help: Celery seeds can help reduce wind, as can fresh dill tea (simply brew some fresh dill in boiling water for a few minutes, strain and drink). Peppermint oil also helps prevent wind.

Homeopathy: Lycopodium, arsenicum and argentum nitricum are all recommended for relief of wind and bloating.

If all else fails: It may sound like a joke but it isn’t – you can buy special airtight underwear (Under-Ease) from the US that contains a replaceable charcoal filter designed to remove the unsociable smells associated with troublesome and persistent wind – visit www.under-tec.com or call (1) 888 433 5913 for details (from outside the US call (1) 719 584 7782).

Further Information: National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse, www.niddk.nih.gov/health/digest/pubs/gas/gas.htm