Dear all,
Yes you read the title right, I seem to have got rid of my "hypoglycemia" symptoms by switching to a high Glycemic-Index diet. Just for reference, my "symptoms" were feeling a kind of hot-sweat increased fatigue/dizziness/sickness/shakes which come on when I haven't eaten for some time (>4hours say) which is promptly remedied by eating again.
For the past 13months I've followed a low-GI diet (lots of vegetables, beans, pulses, whole-grains [mostly oats] and some fruit - no added oils or fried foods or refined carbohydrates). I thought this was very healthy - we're always told fibre is good for us, particularly when we have gut problems, and I still believe it is healthy for someone without my condition. I suffer stomach bloating, gas and some degree of constipation. My diet was also high in protein as we're often told this is important for blood-sugar problems. I also thought this was healthy but it has occured to me that the cure for type-II diabetes is to eat less not more protein, since the GI of food isn't the only issue causing blood-sugar problems.
I recently read "A New IBS Solution" by Mark Pimentel MD. He suggests that Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) is responsible for much of IBS. He also suggests something which seems at odds with all of the usual advice on bacterial overgrowth - which is to say that fibre is bad and glucose is good(!). I knew from experience that fibre gave me more bloating but continued to eat it because of all the advice that I should. To be specific, Pimentel suggests that virtually all sugars are in fact bad but that sucrose and glucose are good (for this condition). The reason being that most sugars (fructose, lactose etc.) are difficult for the the body to digest so they last a long way into the digestive tract. Glucose (and sucrose) on the other hand are very quickly absorbed, in fact in the first 3 feet of the small intestine. Now although glucose feeds bacteria very quickly - the point is that the type of problem I believe I have (SIBO) means that I have overgrowth of bacteria that should normally be in the colon but which has spread into the (predominantly) the lower part of the small-intestine, where they can be easily fed by (a) fibre and (b) carbohydrates (including sugars) which are able to get that far. So the theory is that by eating sugars that are rapidly absorbed in the first small section of the intestine, although you may be fueling bacteria there, you are actually completely depriving bacteria in the vast majority of the rest of your intestine - hence overall less food for the bacteria.
I decided to do a 2 week trial of switching to a high-GI, low-fibre low-protein diet. It consisted of white-rice with two pints a day of a low-fructose high-nutrient-density vegetable juice (made from spinach, lettuce, fennel, parsely, celery). I've checked with the Cron-o-meter software that this provides all of my essential nutrients, and of course these juices are high in phytonutrients which I don't like being without for too long.
The results: 50% reduction in bloating, no more blood-sugar problems, reduced anxiety, 90% reduction in gas.
So I suppose the morals are (1) that in trying to treat the symptoms (with a high fibre high protein diet) rather than the cause (SIBO) we are actually feeding the cause - reminds me of pharmaceuticals! and (2) a little bit of experimentation is a good idea.
My next experiment is to try an elemental diet. These are expensive but I think I can construct my own from ingredients available at Holland & Barrett. Elemental diets have a high success rate (80%) in eliminating SIBO (at least from a breath-test point of view). I also think this could help with my leaky-gut symptoms as there will be no protein and this is the most likely nutrient causing an immune response.
Cheers,
Cig
Yes you read the title right, I seem to have got rid of my "hypoglycemia" symptoms by switching to a high Glycemic-Index diet. Just for reference, my "symptoms" were feeling a kind of hot-sweat increased fatigue/dizziness/sickness/shakes which come on when I haven't eaten for some time (>4hours say) which is promptly remedied by eating again.
For the past 13months I've followed a low-GI diet (lots of vegetables, beans, pulses, whole-grains [mostly oats] and some fruit - no added oils or fried foods or refined carbohydrates). I thought this was very healthy - we're always told fibre is good for us, particularly when we have gut problems, and I still believe it is healthy for someone without my condition. I suffer stomach bloating, gas and some degree of constipation. My diet was also high in protein as we're often told this is important for blood-sugar problems. I also thought this was healthy but it has occured to me that the cure for type-II diabetes is to eat less not more protein, since the GI of food isn't the only issue causing blood-sugar problems.
I recently read "A New IBS Solution" by Mark Pimentel MD. He suggests that Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) is responsible for much of IBS. He also suggests something which seems at odds with all of the usual advice on bacterial overgrowth - which is to say that fibre is bad and glucose is good(!). I knew from experience that fibre gave me more bloating but continued to eat it because of all the advice that I should. To be specific, Pimentel suggests that virtually all sugars are in fact bad but that sucrose and glucose are good (for this condition). The reason being that most sugars (fructose, lactose etc.) are difficult for the the body to digest so they last a long way into the digestive tract. Glucose (and sucrose) on the other hand are very quickly absorbed, in fact in the first 3 feet of the small intestine. Now although glucose feeds bacteria very quickly - the point is that the type of problem I believe I have (SIBO) means that I have overgrowth of bacteria that should normally be in the colon but which has spread into the (predominantly) the lower part of the small-intestine, where they can be easily fed by (a) fibre and (b) carbohydrates (including sugars) which are able to get that far. So the theory is that by eating sugars that are rapidly absorbed in the first small section of the intestine, although you may be fueling bacteria there, you are actually completely depriving bacteria in the vast majority of the rest of your intestine - hence overall less food for the bacteria.
I decided to do a 2 week trial of switching to a high-GI, low-fibre low-protein diet. It consisted of white-rice with two pints a day of a low-fructose high-nutrient-density vegetable juice (made from spinach, lettuce, fennel, parsely, celery). I've checked with the Cron-o-meter software that this provides all of my essential nutrients, and of course these juices are high in phytonutrients which I don't like being without for too long.
The results: 50% reduction in bloating, no more blood-sugar problems, reduced anxiety, 90% reduction in gas.
So I suppose the morals are (1) that in trying to treat the symptoms (with a high fibre high protein diet) rather than the cause (SIBO) we are actually feeding the cause - reminds me of pharmaceuticals! and (2) a little bit of experimentation is a good idea.
My next experiment is to try an elemental diet. These are expensive but I think I can construct my own from ingredients available at Holland & Barrett. Elemental diets have a high success rate (80%) in eliminating SIBO (at least from a breath-test point of view). I also think this could help with my leaky-gut symptoms as there will be no protein and this is the most likely nutrient causing an immune response.
Cheers,
Cig
