“Diverticular Disease & Dietary Recommendations”
“What are some dietary recommendations for people with diverticular disease which are not symptomatic?” Is the answer as simple as “eat more fiber”? How to tell how much fiber is adequate fiber?
Total watch time: < 5 mins.
Check Out These Highlights From This Episode:
- Fiber recommendations [0:34]
- Explaining diverticulitis [1:16]
Full Transcript –
Tyson: 00:04: Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of Dear Dietitian, where you ask questions and we answer them, yeah.
Peta: 00:14: More questions, plenty.
Tyson: 00:16: Go.
Peta: 00:17: In clients with diverticular disease, that are not symptomatic. What are the dietary recommendations?
Tyson: 00:26: Eat more fibre.
Peta: 00:27: Oh really? Okay. No, so —
Tyson: 00:35: Diverticular disease, not diverticulitis?
Peta: 00:37: Yeah, diverticular disease.
Tyson: 00:39: Yes, so have good fibre.
Peta: 00:40: So, what would you recommend to someone with diverticular disease. So, like is too much fibre, too much of a good thing.
Tyson: 00:46: Yeah, but how often do people have too much fibre? Rare.
Peta: 00:50: So, what is the dietary prescription for people with diverticular disease? Just fibre?
Tyson: 00:58: Well, reach your fibre targets can be one, with fluid. Yeah. No?
Peta: 01:03: Nup. Nup.
Tyson: 01:05: Go on. Alright.
Peta: 01:08: There is no consensus for what diet is good for people with diverticular disease. Most people over the age of —
Tyson: 01:14: What is diverticulitis?
Peta: 01:15: Is the inflammation —
Tyson: 01:17: Caused by?
Peta: 01:19: Well essentially, dysfunction of the bowel.
Tyson: 01:23: Food getting stuck in holes in their diverticular, and then they get inflamed. That’s what’s —
Peta: 01:27: Yeah, but that’s not from their diet per se. There is no consensus. So, just so you know, diverticular disease is present in most people, a lot of people over the age of say 65. And that’s because of that decrease in muscle tone, and so with that, if they’ve had babies, if they’ve got you know, hernias and stuff like that. They get those bulges and pouches. So, diverticular disease is the presence of that disease. Diverticulitis is the inflammation of it. Yep, so some people just because of compromised immune systems, they actually have a diverticular attack or diverticulitis because of that compromised immune system. You’ve got food going through the gut, it’s going to get stuck right, if you’ve got an infection of inflammation there and it’s just the presence of that food. And so, then a lot of people attach that food, or that you know, that food that’s stuck to be problematic for them. And so, they would unnecessarily restrict those foods, because they think that was the causative factor.
Tyson: 02:27: Yeah, it’s not what I said, keep going.
Peta: 02:28: And it’s not black and white like that. And so, the prescription of that, to have say like a high fibre diet —
Tyson: 02:33: It’s not a high fibre, it’s just an adequate fibre. Meet the recommendations.
Peta: 02:37: Yeah but that’s still high fibre, for most people isn’t it?
Tyson: 02:40: Yeah, but like. You say don’t?
Peta: 02:44: Well no, because some people who have diverticular disease, may not tolerate that high fibre load and it can sometimes exacerbate the disease or even bring it on for some. You know, there’s, like I said there is not actually a really good solid evidence to suggest. When you’ve got a flare up definitely.
Tyson: 03:00: Based on the current evidence, what is the suggestion? What is the dietary recommendation for people, based on current evidence?
Peta: 03:07: Adequate fibre. But it’s not, it’s not the diet that I would probably prescribe for most of my diverticular clients.
Tyson: 03:17: See that long winded answer, like that’s the difference. Okay.
Peta: 03:29: Yep, anyway but in relation to clients that I see I suppose without, most of the time they’re avoiding things with fibre in it and bits and pieces, and stuff like that.
Tyson: 03:39: Oh yeah, but that’s because the GP said shit though, that’s not because, that’s not what we do as dieticians. We’re not going to say avoid nuts and seeds, because there is no evidence to suggest that those things cause it. If that’s what you’re talking about, sweet. But that doesn’t push away my recommendation and you’re like nup. Just like, you said exactly my recommendation, after a long winded bloody story about crap.
Peta: 04:02: No, but like I agree, it’s definitely adequate fibre. But it’s not, but a lot of the time though, the things that they need to have for fibre can sometimes make their bowels worse, or they —
Tyson: 04:14: Yeah, if you don’t have enough fluid with it, or they’ve got other food intolerances or something else that causes issues.
Peta: 04:19: Yep and a lot of the time that’s what it is.
Tyson: 04:21: And if they are having an increase, yeah an increase of certain foods, that they won’t have an increase amounts and then all of a sudden they’ve got a food intolerance reaction because they’ve had too high, yeah? Look at that. People say I don’t know thing.
Peta: 04:36: Nobody says that.
Over to you…
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