This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
‘FODMAP’ diet urged as treatment for functional gut syndromes
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
WASHINGTON — A gastroenterologist challenged colleagues here to make food choice a key treatment strategy for functional gut syndromes.
“It is no longer acceptable for clinicians managing patients with functional bowel disorders to ignore dietary manipulation as a major therapy. Food is now sexy … and it’s time to engage,” Peter Gibson, MD, said in a presentation at the American College of Gastroenterology’s Annual Scientific Meeting and Postgraduate Course.
Gibson, of Melbourne, Australia, urged his American colleagues to take a closer look at FODMAPs — fermentable oligosaccharides (fructo-oligosaccharides and galacto-oligosaccharides), disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols (sorbitol and mannitol) — which he believes are key dietary factors linked to functional gut syndromes.
Many Australian physicians are using a low-FODMAP diet as an alterative to pharmaceutical therapies, and some Australian restaurants even offer low-FODMAP menus, Gibson said.
Gibson’s research is based on the hypothesis that the prime candidates for functional gut syndromes are poorly absorbed short-chain carbohydrates because these small molecules are potentially osmotically active, poorly absorbed and rapidly fermentable.
His research shows that dietary FODMAPs increase intestinal water content and hydrogen production over the entire day.
In a related study, Gibson’s investigators enrolled 62 patients with IBS and fructose malabsorption and instructed them in a low-FODMAP diet. The researchers recorded a 77% adherence to the diet and a 74% overall response.
Follow-up research showed that the improvement in IBS symptoms could not be attributed to a placebo effect, but Gibson emphasized that the diet is most effective when taught by a dietician.
He speculated that there is less acceptance of dietary therapy by gastroenterologists because most lack education in food chemistry, diet in general and taking dietary histories.
“Food is what patients, but not gastroenterologists, blame for their functional gut syndromes,” Gibson said.
Disclosure: Gibson published a book on the FODMAP diet in Australia and New Zealand.