Category: Stomach bloating

The spice has been used as a herbal medicine to treat digestive problems, infection and inflammation.

Turmeric is a common spice used in dishes to improve the colour and flavour of foods, and also recognised for its medicinal and health benefits going back to ancient times.

According to a study, turmeric contains a compound that is similarly as effective as omeprazole for treating acid reflux, heart burn, bloating, and other common symptoms of indigestion.

Curcumin is a naturally occurring compound in turmeric that has been used as a herbal medicine to treat digestive problems, infection, and inflammation.

Until now there hasn’t been any scientific work to compare the effectiveness of this herbal supplement with conventional medicines.

Dyspepsia

The study recruited 206 patients with functional dyspepsia, a digestive condition that causes stomach upset.

Over a 28-day study, patients were divided into three treatment groups.

The turmeric group received two capsules containing 250 mg of curcumin four times a day.

The omeprazole group received one capsule of 20 mg omeprazole once a day.

The combined treatment group received one capsule of 20 mg omeprazole per day and two capsules of 250 mg curcumin four times daily.

The Severity of Dyspepsia Assessment (SODA) score was used for assessing functional dyspepsia symptoms.

The scores suggested that the severity of abdominal pain and other non-pain symptoms such early satiety, bloating, vomiting, and nausea were reduced in the combined, curcumin, and omeprazole groups.

The results showed that curcumin and omeprazole were equally effective for functional dyspepsia with no serious side-effects.

The authors wrote:

“This multicenter randomized controlled trial provides highly reliable evidence for the treatment of functional dyspepsia…

the new findings from our study may justify considering curcumin in clinical practice.”

Related

• Curcumin boosts mood and memory.
• Turmeric can block fear memories after a traumatic experience.
• One gram of turmeric at breakfast improves memory in people with memory problems.
• Curcumin can improve several symptoms of depression.

The study was published in the journal BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine (Kongkam et al., 2023).

The drink is linked to bacterial overgrowth that causes abdominal pain and bloating.

Daily consumption of alcohol — one drink for women and two drink for men — is linked to abdominal pain, gas, bloating, constipation and diarrhea, research finds.

Even small amount of alcohol intake can have a negative effect on gut health, the study found.

Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) is a medical condition triggered by different factors, such as certain foods and drinks.

A study by Dr Scott Gabbard and colleagues, assessed the relationship between SIBO and moderate alcohol intake.

In order to test for the presence of SIBO, participants in this study were asked to take a lactulose hydrogen breath test (LHBT).

The results showed that any level of alcohol intake was notably linked to abnormal bacterial overgrowth in the small intestine.

Unlike our large intestines that contain high levels of bacterial populations, the small bowel should normally contain a low number of bacteria.

The SIBO condition is related to an unusually large increased numbers of bacteria in the small bowel.

Consequently, many nutrients, instead of being absorbed by the body, will be used by the large numbers of bacteria.

Therefore, SIBO patients due to a lack of nutrients, are malnourished and feel sluggish and fatigued.

Also, changes in bowel habits and production of gas are consequences of nutrient breakdown by the bacteria in the small intestine.

According to the USDA dietary guidelines, moderate consumption of alcohol is one drink a day for women and two drinks a day for men.

One alcoholic drink counts as twelve ounces of regular beer (341 ml, 5% alcohol), 5 ounces of wine (140 ml, 12% alcohol), or 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits (40 ml, 40% alcohol).

About 95 percent of participants in this study were moderate drinkers and sometimes they drank less than one a day.

Dr Gabbard said:

“These findings are significant because we now know that any bit of alcohol consumption–not just the amount consumed by alcoholics — is a strong predictor of a positive lactulose hydrogen breath testing and small intestinal bacterial overgrowth.

While typical treatment for SIBO has been antibiotics, probiotics or a combination of the two, the question now becomes what is the exact association between moderate alcohol consumption and SIBO and whether alcohol cessation can be used as a treatment for this potentially harmful condition.”

The study was presented at the American College of Gastroenterology’s (ACG) 76th Annual Scientific meeting in Washington, DC.

A useful tip to overcome stomach bloating, pain and gas is ditching this food from your meals.

Fried foods can increase stomach cramps, gas, pain, bloating, indigestion and even increase the risk of dangerous conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease, colon and prostate cancers.

According to the Mayo Clinic, fatty foods, including fried foods, some sauces and fatty meats can cause gas.

Stomach bloating and gassiness can be painful, annoying and sometimes embarrassing, but avoiding certain foods and changing diet is the most cost effective way to treat the condition.

One particular type of food to avoid is that fried in vegetable oil, such as french fries, fried chicken and doughnuts.

Deep frying can also activate carcinogens — a substance that causes cancer.

For example, starchy foods such as French fries can form a compound called acrylamide that is linked to several types of cancer.

By increasing the length of frying time and the re-use of oil, this type of toxic compounds in the food is increased.

A study has shown that eating deep-fried foods at least once a week increases the chance of prostate cancer significantly.

Professor Janet Stanford, study co-author, said:

“The link between prostate cancer and select deep-fried foods appeared to be limited to the highest level of consumption — defined in our study as more than once a week — which suggests that regular consumption of deep-fried foods confers particular risk for developing prostate cancer.”

Professor Stanford concluded:

“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to look at the association between intake of deep-fried food and risk of prostate cancer.”

A more recent study found that frying in vegetable oil or eating fried foods increases inflammation of the colon, worsens inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), including colitis and colon cancer.

Foods fried in vegetable oil appear to harm the lining of the gut and increase the risk of gut leakage, which can lead to bacteria from the gut spreading into the bloodstream.

The reason that fried foods cause inflammation in the human body is related to the oxidation of polyunsaturated fats in the cooking oils when they are heated.

Deep fried foods have also been associated with lung, head and neck, pancreas, esophagus, and breast cancers.

The first study was published in The Prostate (Stott-Milleret et al., 2013) and the second study was published in Cancer Prevention Research (Zhang et al., 2019).

Stomach bloating is an unpleasant feeling and sometimes painful.

Reducing certain foods, improving eating habits, stopping smoking and taking probiotics can all reduce stomach bloating.

Many people experience excessive gas and bloating in the abdomen.

It is felt as an uncomfortable feeling, puffiness and a stretched tummy.

Flatulence is mostly related to excess air formed in the upper digestive tract.

This issue is affected by what and how we eat and drink.

For instance, talking while chewing food, drinking and eating too quickly, fizzy drinks and smoking and chewing gum, can all cause stomach bloating and flatulence.

Your body posture or changes in position might be another factor that causes bloating and flatulence.

Poor habits such as eating in a rush or under stress are the other lifestyle factors that cause stomach bloating.

Here are some tips to reduce stomach discomfort and pain:

1. Try to reduce or remove certain foods from your diet

Legumes, such as beans, are nutrient dense and high in fibre but they are difficult to digest and can cause gas.

Some cooking techniques can reduce the number of indigestible starches in legumes and so help to reduce the bloating and pain.

2. Give up smoking 

Smoking or using e-cigarettes causes the swallowing of more air so and so more gas and discomfort

3. Improve eating habits

Eating smaller portion sizes and drinking or chewing slowly are useful behaviours in reducing abdominal discomfort.

Body posture may also influence stomach bloating.

One study has suggested that gas moves quicker in the upright position than supine.

So if you want to avoid bloating stand up.

4. Take probiotics and digestive enzymes

Some people need Lactase enzyme to help breaking down lactose when consuming milk and its byproducts.

Charcoal can also be helpful as it attaches to the gases and reduces bloating.

The study was published in the journal Gut (Dainese et al., 2003)

The vitamin helps easy many symptoms of IBS, which include abdominal pain, diarrhoea, constipation and bloating.

Vitamin D eases the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome, such as stomach bloating, research finds.

Stomach bloating affects one-third of adults in the US.

Over 90 percent of people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) experience stomach bloating.

The study found that many people with IBS also had a vitamin D deficiency.

Vitamin D supplementation helps easy many symptoms of IBS, which include abdominal pain, diarrhea, constipation and bloating.

Dr Bernard Corfe, study co-author, said:

“The study provides an insight into the condition and, importantly, a new way to try to manage it.

It is evident from the findings that all people with IBS should have their vitamin D levels tested and a large majority of them would benefit from supplements.

IBS is a poorly understood condition which impacts severely on the quality of life of sufferers.

There is no single known cause and likewise no single known cure.”

The research was a review of seven different studies on the connection between vitamin D levels and IBS.

The study’s authors write that:

“The available evidence suggests that low vitamin D status is common among the IBS population and merits assessment and rectification for general health reasons alone.

An inverse correlation between serum vitamin D and IBS symptom severity is suggested and vitamin D interventions may benefit symptoms.”

IBS may affect as many as one-in-five people.

The condition can cause much embarrassment and can frequently be a lifelong disease.

Another way to combat stomach bloating is by reducing salt intake.

A low sodium diet decreased the risk of stomach bloating by 27 percent.

How salt causes bloating is not yet known, although the scientists think it could be because salt causes water retention.

The study was published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition (Williams et al., 2018).

The drugs increase the risk of obesity, diabetes, and intestinal infections by altering gut bacteria.

Eighteen of the 41 most common drugs, including antibiotics, antidepressants and steroids can cause chaos in the gut microbiome, scientists warn.

The microbiome is a collection of different microorganisms including good bacteria that live in the gastrointestinal tract (GI).

The gut microbiome contains more than 1000 different species of bacteria.

Past studies have shown that changes in gut microbiota can lead to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson, cancer, liver diseases, obesity and diabetes.

The new study provides evidence that certain medications can alter bacteria in the gut and puts the population at the risk of obesity, intestinal infections and more.

Antibiotics, laxatives, metformin, and proton pump inhibitors (PPI) seem to have the largest impact on the gut bacteria.

• Antibiotics are prescribed widely. Only in Europe, 34 percent of the population take this medication each year.
• Laxatives can easily be purchased over-the-counter or as medical prescriptions to prevent or treat constipation.
• Metformin is a common medication for treating Type 2 diabetes, but those on this drug have higher levels of E. coli, a bacterial infection that can cause bloody diarrhoea, severe stomach pain, kidney failure and death.
• PPI is the most commonly prescribed medicine used for heartburn and acid-related disorders and symptoms such as dyspepsia, which affects nearly 24 percent of Europeans. PPI users in this study had higher fatty acid production and a larger number of upper gastrointestinal tract bacteria.

The researcher also found that IBS patients who were taking antidepressants (SSRIs) had a large number of potentially harmful bacteria called Eubacterium ramulus.

Those who were on oral steroids had large amounts of methanogenic bacteria which is linked to an increase in body fat and obesity.

In addition, the study identified eight different types of medications that increased resistance to antibiotics treatment.

Mr Arnau Vich Vila, the study’s lead researcher, said:

“We already know that the efficiency and the toxicity of certain drugs are influenced by the bacterial composition of the gastrointestinal tract and that the gut microbiota has been related to multiple health conditions; therefore, it is crucial to understand which are the consequences of medication use in the gut microbiome.

Our work highlights the importance of considering the role of the gut microbiota when designing treatments and also points to new hypotheses that could explain certain side-effects associated with medication use.

The study was presented at UEG Week Barcelona (Vich Vila et al., 2019).

Eating high-fibre diets along with this type of food is a proven way to reduce bloating.

High-fibre diets are known to cause bloating and abdominal pain.

However, researchers have found a solution for this problem.

They say eating a high-fibre diet rich in carbohydrates instead of protein-rich regimens reduces bloating.

In this clinical trial, researchers examined 164 participants who consumed three versions of high-fibre diets.

Participants who ate a high-fibre diet rich in plant proteins were 40 percent more likely to experience bloating symptoms compared to a carbohydrate-rich version.

Foods rich in fibre appear to increase the population of certain good bacteria beneficial to human health.

However, bloating and abdominal pain are consequences of gas produced from breaking down fibre by this bacteria in the gut.

This study suggests that replacing proteins with carbs can change the population of the gut bacteria, which is known as the microbiome.

Dr Noel Mueller, study co-author, said:

“It’s possible that in this study, the protein-rich version of the diet caused more bloating because it caused more of a healthy shift in the composition of the microbiome.”

He added:

“Notably, the protein in these diets was mostly from vegetable sources such as beans, legumes, and nuts.”

Bloating is a common symptom of gastrointestinal disorder affecting 1 in 5 American adults.

Mueller and colleagues previously found that cutting back on salt can reduce bloating.

The present study used three versions of high-fibre diets consisting of high-fibre, low-sodium “DASH” diets.

One was a protein-rich diet, the other carbohydrate-rich and the third a high-fibre diet rich in unsaturated fat.

The plant-protein-rich version consisted of 48 percent carbs, 27 percent fat, and 25 percent protein.

The carbohydrate-rich version consisted of 58 percent carbohydrate, 27 percent fat, and 15 percent protein.

The fat-rich version consisted of 48 percent carbohydrate, 37 percent fat, and 15 percent protein.

The protein-rich diet increased the likelihood of bloating by 40 percent compared to the carb-rich diet.

Therefore, foods such as wholegrains that are higher in carbs than proteins might be more tolerable to digest.

But the downside of substituting proteins for carbohydrates is the possibility of eating less healthy foods.

Dr Mueller said:

“Bloating may be just a consequence of a healthy shift in the microbiome, so that if somebody is able to put up with the bloating caused by a high-protein, high-fiber diet, they may ultimately benefit more in other health measures.”

The study was published in Clinical and Translational Gastroenterology (Zhang et al., 2020).

Prescriptions for this drug in Europe and the United States are more common than ever before.

People who take antibiotics, particularly those that kill a wider range of bacteria, are more likely to get inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and its main forms, ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease for the first time.

The latest research comes at a time when prescriptions for antibiotics in Europe and the United States are more common than ever before.

One consequence of antibiotics is permanently changing microbial communities in the gut, which damages human health and increases the odds for new-onset gastrointestinal related disorders.

The main signs of digestive system abnormalities include bloating, heartburn, abdominal pain or cramps, nausea and vomiting, bleeding, back pain, and urinary incontinence.

Clinical studies have found a strong relationship between early-life gut microbiota with the progression and severity of inflammatory conditions such as allergies, asthma, and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

Mounting evidence shows that in many cases antibiotic treatment has led to an antibiotic resistance crisis or destruction of “good” bacteria in the gut.

Ozkul et al., 2020 have found that children treated with antibiotics are more likely to develop inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in their adulthood.

Now researchers from Sweden and the United States warn that antibiotics will lead to gastrointestinal disease in adults.

They compared patients with their siblings which helps to control for the genetic component in IBD.

Dr Long Nguyen, the study’s first author, said:

“I think this affirms what many of us have suspected—that antibiotics, which adversely affect gut microbial communities, are a risk factor for IBD.

However, despite this compelling rationale and seemingly intuitive presumption, there have been no population-scale investigations to support this hypothesis until now.”

The research team detected 24,000 new IBD cases of which 16,000 were ulcerative colitis and 8,000 Crohn’s disease.

Previous administration of antibiotics almost doubled the likelihood of getting IBD.

The risk was more evident with broad-spectrum antibiotics for ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease.

IBD impacts a large number of people around the world and increases the odds of cancer and death.

Professor Jonas Ludvigsson, study co-author, said:

“To identify risk factors for IBD is important, and ultimately our aim is to prevent the disease.

Our study provides another piece of the puzzle and even more reason to avoid using antibiotics needlessly.”

The study was published in The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology (Nguyen et al., 2020).

How to reduce heartburn, stomach pain, diarrhoea, constipation and bloating.

Physical activities like walking, cycling and aerobics can all help reduce stomach bloating, research finds.

They change the speed at which gas moves through the intestines and bowel.

Physical activities can ease indigestion, heartburn, bloating, constipation, stomach pain, and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

Lack of physical activity and a high body mass index (BMI) have been shown to increase common GI disorders including abdominal pain with nausea or vomiting, diarrhoea, bloating and constipation.

Researchers from the University of Washington and the University of Minnesota found that obese people who regularly do some physical activities suffered less from GI symptoms when compared with inactive subjects.

Dr Rona L. Levy, the study’s lead author, said:

“It is well-documented that maintaining a healthy diet and regular physical activity can benefit GI health.

Our study is the first to show the benefit of maintaining these healthy habits and staving off the occurrence of GI symptoms in obese people.

These findings have future implications for the treatment of both obesity and various GI disorders and symptoms that are more prevalent in this population.”

Another study found that moderate to hard physical activity over the course of 12 weeks would significantly improve GI symptoms.

The most common activities involved were walking, cycling and aerobics and the duration of exercise was around 5 hours per week.

Moderate-intensity physical activity at a minimum of 30 minutes per day, five days a week has been recommended by experts.

But this study shows that a significant improvement in IBS patients occurs when exercise routines were increased.

These studies suggest that routine physical activities can be an effective treatment option in reducing symptoms of GI disorders such as IBS.

Boosting physical activity causes a change of gas transit and colonic transit (how quickly material moves through the large bowel).

This will lead to an improvement in intestinal gas clearance and reduction in the symptoms of abdominal pain, stomach bloating and constipation.

The first study was published in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology And Hepatology (Levy et al., 2005) and the second study was published in the World Journal of Gastroenterology (Johannesson et al., 2015).