Pete Williams (@petefmed) recently shared with me the following 2016 research study: It said: “the low Fermentable Oligo-, Di-, Monosaccharides And Polyols (low-FODMAP) diet has recently emerged as an effective intervention for reducing gastrointestinal symptoms in IBS.” The diet appears to be highly effective for dealing with IBS symptoms such as abdominal pain, bloating and diarrhoea.
One of my favourite nutrition books is The Paleo Diet by Loren Cordain, top researcher in evolutionary medicine. The premise of this original book on the Paleo diet was that we should be eating more like our ancient ancestors who lived 10,000 to 20,000 year ago in the pre-agricultural, hunter-gatherer era. What these hunter-gatherers ate was just that: what they could effectively kill and gather from nearby areas. It included lean meat, poultry, seafood (if they lived near water), fresh fruit and vegetables and nuts and seeds. Very significantly for our modern learning, was that they didn’t consume grains, legumes (beans, lentils, peas), dairy, refined sugars, processed foods, or many high-glycemic fruit and vegetables.
The Glycaemic Index of a food represents the time it takes for sugar to appear in the bloodstream after that food has been eaten. Obviously something like plain sugar requires little-to-no digesting and spikes the blood sugar really quickly. In comparison, a dense sourdough rye bread made from stoneground flour, would take rather longer to enter the blood stream. Interestingly and perhaps shockingly, Corn Flakes and very refined white bread have a higher GI than table sugar…… and these are not the worst breakfast items that many people choose!
I was interviewed last year by Carte Blanche on the topic of 'sugar' and sugar addiction. We talked about the negative consequences of sugar consumption - the obvious ones are becoming over-weight or obese and progressing through stages of insulin resistance and diabetes. However, one less obvious link to excess sugar consumption is systemic inflammatory imbalances - sugar is very pro-inflammatory and inflammation has been linked to pretty much all the degenerative diseases of our time: CV disease, arthritis, neurodegeneration, autoimmune conditions, and potentially even cancer.
When I lived in Cape Town, I met a lot of runners, cyclists, triathletes and gym-goers. It is in fact a particularly fit and healthy city when I compare with other places that I've lived in the UK and the States. There are plenty of exceptions to that rule, though, and Cape Town has it's fair share of stress junkies who work hard and play hard, expecting their bodies to cope with the strain. The number of over-worked, over-trained cyclists that I've seen since I’ve been in South Africa .......
