Archive for the ‘Diet and Fibre’ Category

Diverticular Disease: The Fibre Story

Thursday, September 14th, 2017

In the early part of the 20th century constipation was not generally related to any individual illness. The idealised achievement of daily defaecation meant constipation was common particularly in the elderly. Treatment was not free until the NHS came along and natural and herbal laxatives were well used medications. Diverticular disease (DD) became recognised more before WW11. The distinguishing symptoms were pain, fever and diarrhoea. A low residue diet was recommended to reduce diarrhoea and give the bowel rest. Serious pain sometimes resulted in surgery. Infection and inflammation (diverticulitis) were not always present but pieces of food and faeces were trapped in diverticula. Avoidance of coarse fruit and vegetables, seeds and pips was recommended.

Hospital diet sheet for diverticulitis 1961………”forbidden foods – all fried foods, pips and skins of fruits, pastry, suet puddings, coarse stalky vegetables, salads, onions and celery, chunky marmalade, jam with pips or skins, wholemeal or brown bread, coarse biscuits-Ryvita, digestive, Allbran, oatmeal, Weetabix, Shredded Wheat, fruitcake or scones, nuts, dried fruit.”

A significant change in diet started about 1970 when treatment for diverticular disease (DD) was suddenly reversed.

Hospital diet sheet for diverticulis 1982………..”you can eat a normal varied diet but include…… (all of the forbidden foods from 1961 except fried food)….SUPPLEMENT meals with 2 teaspoonfuls of unprocessed bran twice daily. EAT LESS white flour in any form and white and other sugars. DIETARY FIBRE ….by helping to restore normal function of the digestive tract, fibre can be useful in the treatment of constipation and diarrhoea”

  • Who persuaded health professionals that wheat bran was good for diarrhoea?
  • What was the evidence for this complete reversal of treatment?
  • Did anyone ask patients if this helped them?
  • Who was behind this change?

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Diet and Fibre: A Wind of Change

Sunday, March 3rd, 2013

The theory that diverticular disease (DD) was caused by insufficient fibre in the diet was proposed about 40 years ago. Many websites, books and health professional reviews still persist in the recommendation that dietary fibre levels should be increased up to 30g or more per day (1,2). Some still suggest the use of added wheat bran which was found to cause problems some time ago. A wind of change is blowing through DD from a new generation of researchers and editors not afraid to point out the lack of evidence and shortcomings of the fibre theory. For example, Peery et al. (3) found that a high fibre diet with increased frequency of bowel movement was associated with a greater prevalence of diverticulosis. Low levels of dietary fibre do not cause DD (4) and increased fibre levels do not prevent diverticulitis (5).

Extra fibre merely adds to the problem (more…)

Animal, Human and Fibre Trials

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

Animals do get diverticula and hence ‘diverticulosis’. Like mankind, such diverticula can be found in several organs such as oesophagus, ureter, bladder, jejunum or small intestine. This condition is rarely encountered in veterinary gastroenterology (1), there are only occasional case reports. Animals do not get the kind of colon diverticular disease (DD) that began to increase in humans in the western world from the beginning of the 20th century. Questions about human DD were inevitably directed towards diet. What changed around the 1900s and would a human diet produce colon DD in animals? (more…)

A look at the fibre theory

Thursday, August 11th, 2011

Diet sheets, recipes and menus are frequently requested by people newly diagnosed with DD but there is great variation in which foods help or cause problems for different people. A strict diet is not needed other than one which has plenty of variety and fluids, and conforms to the healthy diet currently recommended for everyone. Anything which is found to cause problems should be avoided, or reduced in amount or frequency but not to the extent that diet becomes restricted. People have different tastes and food should be enjoyed.

AFRICAN DIETS

DD patients, new and old, will find that many resources recommend a diet high in fibre, some to the extent that fibre needs to be doubled in quantity with the aid of wheat bran. The fibre and bran treatment for DD started about 1970 when some doctors working in Uganda (1) found no cases of DD and attributed this to the large amount of fibre in the diet. As Mr Hutchinson described in the last Incontact magazine, too much fibre can have its own adverse effects (very high incidence of sigmoid volvulus). Was this evidence from Uganda sufficient to conclude that a low fibre diet was the cause of DD and increasing dietary fibre, and bran in particular, would both prevent and treat DD? (more…)

Getting Personal With Diet

Friday, August 20th, 2010

When somebody is diagnosed with a disease, after months of symptoms and tests, they quite reasonably expect that a treatment is available for their condition. For example, inhalers for asthma, nitrates for angina, drugs to control Parkinson’s disease symptoms or vitamin C for scurvy. 30 years ago diverticular disease (DD), like scurvy, was considered a deficiency disease which could be prevented and treated by increasing the amount of fibre in the diet with wheat bran. Diet sheets and recipes were handed out and, with a few existing bowel drugs for symptoms, the disease was sorted out. Nothing could be done about the diverticula once they had been formed, so a high fibre diet was and often still is the treatment on offer.

     This is 2005, has anything changed since the 1970s? (more…)