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In this Issue...
Food & Diet
Sponsor Farewell!
Special Event
Rx News & Research
Ask Heather
About Us
Eating for
IBS
Eating for IBS is the
life changing cookbook for good digestive health. Discover the delicious diet that controls IBS!
Tell a friend
about
the IBS newsletter!
First Year: IBS
First Year: IBS is an essential guide that covers the
core issues of
IBS symptom prevention on a daily basis.
Need help?
Have questions?
Come
join the IBS Message Boards!
Did you miss the latest
IBS newsletter and
Chinese
Black Bean Cod recipe?
Past issues
are posted here!
Yoga Can Help IBS!
Come to YogaBellys for info, or ask questions on the
IBS Yoga Board!
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July 9, 2003
Hello to everyone -
Our newsletter celebrates summer gardens today with a fantastic (and
fantastically easy!) Tomato Basil Omelet. If you've
given up omelets for breakfast, you're in for a real treat. This dish eliminates
the high fat egg yolks, cheese, and butter used in so many omelet recipes.
Instead, we've livened up the flavor with fresh basil leaves (finely shredded to
minimize their insoluble fiber) and garden tomatoes just bursting with the taste
of sunshine on the vine. Omelets are a snap to make in non-stick skillets, and
you just need a touch of cooking oil spray to prevent sticking. For a great
soluble fiber basis to this dish, serve the omelet with a thick slice of fresh
sourdough toast.
As always, the IBS newsletter is chock full of articles on the latest GI health research, news, events, and questions from the IBS community.
I hope you find this issue both delicious and enlightening!
Best Wishes,
Heather Van Vorous
Summer Basil & Tomato Omelet
This is a fast, delicious, high protein breakfast meal. Serve it with a fruit smoothie and some sourdough toast for a morning feast!
Makes 1 Serving, easily doubled or tripled
4 organic egg whites
2 tablespoons finely chopped ripe tomatoes
1 tablespoon finely shredded fresh basil
1 tablespoon finely diced sweet white onion
1 small garlic clove, mashed
In a small bowl combine egg whites with tomatoes, whisking until lightly frothy.
(Beating the tomatoes in with the eggs will infuse the entire omelet with a
luscious tomato flavor!) Set egg mixture aside.
Heat a small non-stick skillet over medium heat, and spray with cooking oil. Add onion and garlic, and sautee
until golden. Remove onion and garlic from pan. Add egg mixture
to skillet, and immediately top egg mixture with reserved onions and garlic, and basil. When edges of the omelet are slightly crisp, carefully roll omelet up from one side with a rubber spatula to completely enclose filling, turn omelet over, and cook on other side for an additional 1-2 minutes. Serve immediately.
For more fabulous recipes,
click
here for the IBS Recipe Board!
A Special Farewell!
I would like to thank Michael Mahoney and the IBS Audio Program 100 for their sponsorship of the IBS newsletter this
past quarter. I've actually heard from quite a few readers, both personally and on the IBS Hypnosis Message Board, that
they've had wonderful results from the Audio Program and have also really enjoyed the hypnotherapy process.
If you're a new
subscriber, I'd urge you to listen to the online audio samples of the program, and also to review the
spectacularly impressive results
hypnotherapy has shown as a treatment for IBS in clinical research trials. In particular, for stress and anxiety related IBS
symptoms, the IBS Audio Program is hard to beat. So check out the program and the research, and drop by the message board
to see for yourself what others have to say about this truly effective method of treatment!
Crohn's Article for Health.com - We Want You!
Susanna Haines, a journalist with Health.com (the website for Health magazine), is writing an article on nutritional care
for Crohn's disease. Her focus is "real solutions" for Crohn's sufferers -
namely, nutritional and dietary suggestions that readers could incorporate into
their own lives if they suffer from the disease. She would really like to include a few personal
testimonials from people to personalize the article and make it more engaging than a dry medical statement.
To this end, Susanna has asked for some feedback from my readers with Crohn's (or Crohn's and IBS both, but her article is
strictly about Crohn's so unfortunately, information from someone who "just" has IBS won't help her).
She'd like comments on two topics:
1. "Is there one bit of advice
regarding diet and nutrition that has been the absolute best advice you have
gotten?"
2. "What is your favorite recipe from Heather?"
If you can contribute to Susanna's article by Friday, July 11, please email her at shakespeare2@hotmail.com.
Provide as much personal information as possible for
quotation purposes. When the Health.com article is published I'll feature it in the IBS newsletter.
Thank you all!
NOTE: For all article links, please refresh your browser page if the article does not appear when you click on the link.
For Medscape and Cardiosource articles you may have to register in order to view articles (registration is free).
Inflammatory Bowel Disease and IBS:
Separate or Unified?
Both irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel diseases share symptoms of
altered bowel habits associated with abdominal pain or discomfort. Irritable
bowel syndrome has been referred to as a functional bowel disorder, which is
diagnosed by a characteristic cluster of symptoms in the absence of detectable
structural abnormalities. Inflammatory bowel disease is a heterogeneous group of
disorders characterized by various forms of chronic mucosal and/or transmural
inflammation of the intestine. In this review, the authors discuss recent
evidence suggesting several potential mechanisms that might play a
pathophysiologic role in both syndromes. Possible shared pathophysiologic
mechanisms include altered mucosal permeability, an altered interaction of
luminal flora with the mucosal immune system, persistent mucosal immune
activation, alterations in gut motility, and a role of severe, sustained life
stressors in symptom modulation. It is proposed that similarities and
differences between the two syndromes can best be addressed within the framework
of interactions between the central nervous system and the gut immune system.
Based on recent reports of low-grade mucosal inflammation in subpopulations of
patients meeting current diagnostic criteria for irritable bowel syndrome,
therapeutic approaches shown to be effective in inflammatory bowel disease, such
as probiotics, antibiotics, and antiinflammatory agents, have been suggested as
possible therapies for certain patients with irritable bowel syndrome.
Chronic Slow Transit Constipation: Pathophysiology and Management
Patients with idiopathic slow-transit constipation can be divided into 2
subgroups:
1. Patients with normal proximal gastrointestinal motility and with
onset of constipation in connection with childbirth or pelvic surgery. This
subgroup may benefit from consideration of surgical treatment;
2. Patients who
have a dysfunctional enteric nervous/neuroendocrine system and exhibit colonic
dysmotility as part of a generalised gastrointestinal dysmotility. Surgical
approach in this subgroup seems to be unhelpful and medical treatment appears to
be a better approach.
Click here for more
information...
Glycemic Load, Carbohydrate Intake, and Risk of Colorectal Cancer
Evidence suggests that high circulating levels of insulin might be
associated with increased colorectal cancer risk. This study examined the association between dietary intake and
colorectal cancer in 49,124 women participating in a randomized,
controlled trial in Canada. The study findings did not support the hypothesis that diets high in glycemic load,
carbohydrates, or sugar increase colorectal cancer risk.
Click here for more
information...
Risk Factors for Chronic Constipation
Many factors have been associated with the occurrence of constipation,
particularly poor diet and lack of exercise. However, this study found that
multiple medications seem to be an important contributing factor.
A large number of clinical and therapeutic factors were
independently associated with chronic constipation over and above age and
gender. Primary neurological diseases were strongly associated with constipation
but accounted for few cases. Opioids, diuretics, antidepressants, antihistamines, antispasmodics, anticonvulsants,
and aluminum antacids were associated with the highest risk among medications.
Click here for more
information...
Sex-Related Differences in
IBS Patients
Women have a higher prevalence of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and possible
differences in response to treatment, suggesting sex-related differences in
underlying pathophysiology. The aim of this study was to determine possible
sex-related differences in brain responses to a visceral and a psychological
stressor in IBS.
The conclusion was that male and female patients with IBS differ in activation of brain networks
concerned with cognitive, autonomic, and antinociceptive responses to delivered
and anticipated aversive visceral stimuli.
Click here for more
information...
Irritable bowel syndrome in primary care: The patients' and
doctors' views on symptoms, etiology and management
Patients and family physicians have different perceptions of the efficacy of diagnostic and
dietary interventions in IBS. This study concluded that physicians should explore the patients' expectations and
incorporate these in their approach to IBS patients. Click here for more
information...
Looking for the latest IBS research and news?
Click here for the IBS Newsletter Archive
Weather & IBS
"Is it my imagination, or are the heat and humidity of summer really affecting my IBS?"
It's not your imagination at all. The climate in which you live can make a substantial difference in the frequency and severity
of your IBS symptoms.
Hot, humid weather in particular is actually a stress factor in and of itself, because 1) heat stresses the body,
and 2) air pressure changes from humidity affect the levels of serotonin in the body. Over 90% of that serotonin is
in your gut, and current research has demonstrated that serotonin plays a strong role in the underlying pathology of IBS.
In addition, the effects humidity have on the gut's levels of serotonin can significantly reduce your pain tolerance level, and
research studies have also discovered that people with IBS have a lower threshold for gut pain in the first place. We sometimes even
experience normal gut functions as painful. So, the end result of all this is that those muggy days of summer are indeed likely
to cause your IBS symptoms to flare, and to make it more difficult for you to maintain day-to-day stability.
Unfortunately, since you can't control the weather, the best bet is to try everything possible to keep yourself comfortable in
spite of it. Invest in window air conditioners for your home if you don't have central air, or escape to air conditioned public
places (movie theatres, libraries, malls, anywhere) whenever possible. Try to keep your time outside to the cooler mornings and evenings. Keep plenty of cool liquids (particularly
helpful herbal teas like peppermint and fennel) on hand, and drink them frequently throughout the day. Be especially
careful to not tax your digestion further with heavy, greasy, or large meals. And, if at all possible, get extra sleep, as
even minor sleep loss can cause fatigue and a corresponding lower stress-tolerance level, which will just make a bad situation
worse.
If hot, humid summers are affecting you to an extreme degree, you may want to consider the drastic step of moving to a
different region. If your local climate is seriously compromising your health, a move could be well worth it.
Heather & Company is dedicated to serving people with
IBS. Our mission is to offer education, services, and products
that
allow people with IBS to successfully manage their symptoms
through lifestyle modifications. We currently offer the books
Eating for IBS and
First Year IBS, web
site
resources, seminars and classes, and Heather Cooks!, a healthy cooking
show on the internet and television. We also host the only patient-expert moderated IBS Message Boards on the internet with forums for diet, recipes,
hypnotherapy, yoga, plus Crohn's and Colitis. We will soon have other IBS services
and products available. Heather Van Vorous, an IBS sufferer since age 9, is the company
founder and president.
Our websites receive over 900,000 unique visitors each year, and our newsletter
is sent to over 16,000 people twice monthly. Every month over one thousand new people join
our mailing list. Heather & Company and Heather Van Vorous offer the following...
The world's best-selling and best-reviewed books for IBS
The internet's largest IBS newsletter
The only full-length cooking show on television and the internet with a specific
focus on good digestive health
Developed the first and only comprehensive IBS dietary guidelines and recipes
Excerpts and recipes from Eating for IBS licensed by Novartis Pharmaceuticals
Included in 4th edition of Marquis Who's Who in Medicine and Healthcare
Clinical research study based on Eating for IBS diet underway in the
private gastroenterology practice
of Dr. Noel Hershfield in Calgary, Canada
Dietary information used by the Radiology Department of the Cancer Centre in Birmingham, England, for treatment of radiation enteritis
Dietary information featured in Today's Dietitian 2003 cover story, "IBS: Suffering in Silence"
Information requested by gastroenterologists, family physicians, and
dietitians across the USA, Canada, UK, and Australia for IBS patient distribution
The "Authorized Expert" for Diet & Nutrition at the IBS Association and IBS Self Help Group forums
Finalist for an IACP Julia Child Cookbook Award 2001 - Eating for IBS
#17 on the Library Journal's Cookbook Bestseller list for 2000 - Eating for IBS
Work with corporate HR departments to offer employee IBS education programs.
Nominated for a Woman of Strength Award by Oxygen.com
Thousands of personal thank you letters received from readers worldwide for IBS dietary information
Exhibitor at Digestive Disease Week and American Dietetic Association conferences
Foremost patient-expert on IBS in America
Sponsorship opportunities are available for the message boards and this newsletter for companies and/or products that have been legitimately established as helpful
for digestive disorders.
Please
click here to contact us for information.
You are receiving this email because you have expressed
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and information.
To unsubscribe from this newsletter, please click
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LEGAL DISCLAIMER - This email is not intended to replace the services of a physician,
nor does it constitute a doctor-patient relationship. Any application of the recommendations in
this email is at the reader's discretion. Heather Van Vorous and Heather & Company are not liable for any direct or indirect
claim, loss or damage resulting from use of this email and/or any web site(s) linked to/from it.
Readers should consult their own physicians concerning the recommendations in this email.
© 2003
Heather and Company. All rights reserved.
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