IBS Tests or Elimination Diet?
IBS self-diagnosed patients may miss more serious causes of their symptoms, such as coeliac disease, inflammatory bowel disease, diverticulitis, or polyps.
You may also have undergone a battery of tests or even tried to modify your diet without ever finding the real cause of your stomach problems and often have been labelled as having “IBS”. Persistent pain, cramp, bloating and discomfort can cause ongoing anxiety and, in many case effecting your quality of life. A formal diagnosis of FODMAP intolerance and/or SIBO with IBS tests may provide further evidence that the issue exists, get to the root cause of your gut ailments and better manage your tummy troubles.
Why don’t I just remove suspected foods from my diet?
There are many problems with elimination diet:
- Elimination diet is difficult, time consuming and it can be impractical to keep a food diary.
- Elimination diet is not scientific and doesn’t provide accurate proof of malabsorption. It is also not advisable to arbitrarily withdraw certain foods from your diet without objective evidence.
- Elimination diet cannot reliably detect mild or borderline malabsorption.
- Self-reporting is subjective and not all FODMAPs trigger symptoms in all patients.
- Individuals are likely to over restrict the diet by removing food that they may absorb efficiently. This may lead to nutritional inadequacy.
- FODMAPs are natural prebiotics – they encourage the growth of good bacteria in the gut – so any unnecessary and protracted over restriction may have unwanted effects.
- The low FODMAP diet has been shown to produce two consistent effects: a reduction in Bifidobacterium species (good bacteria), and a reduction in butyrate levels (an important nutrient for colonic bacteria and colonic cells). Therefore, unnecessary FODMAP restriction can be unhealthy to your gut.
- IBS Tests are very accurate and simple screening tests. A diagnosis will validate or rule out FODMAP malabsorption and/or SIBO as the root of your IBS symptoms.
