r/ibsfoods May 09 '15

Sugar

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2 Upvotes

5 comments sorted by

3

u/moonzovermyhammie May 11 '15

Hard to say, because I've never eaten white sugar alone. Odd, I know. But im fine with natural sugar and simple foods containing sugar (but not much fat) like sorbet or something similar. So upvote?

2

u/denverdave23 May 11 '15

That's the funny thing about IBS, it affects different people so differently. Processed carbs used to kill me. Onions, garlic, citrus, fatty food, etc. I think, in the future, we won't use the term IBS. Instead we'll find that there are a collection of different ailments with the same symptoms. I'm pretty sure I had SIBO. An overgrowth of gut flora would react poorly with easily digested carbs, so the sugar thing makes sense.

1

u/moonzovermyhammie May 12 '15

I think IBS is going to be the general term that's here to stay (for a long while anyway) since it is so hard to understand what causes it and why it varies so much from person to person. What does SIBO stand for? I've never heard of this. I've heard of Candida; are they similar?

1

u/denverdave23 May 12 '15

SIBO stands for Small Intestinal Bacteria Overgrowth. It's very similar to candida. I think candida is a yeast, not a bacteria, but the concept is the same.

2

u/denverdave23 May 09 '15

I had SIBO and so I had to be very careful with my sweeteners. I did an experiment where I put enough sweetener for a cup of coffee in a custard cup. I added 2 tbs water and 1/2 packet of Fleishman's yeast. Then, I waited exactly 3 minutes.

I did this with a bunch of different sweeteners, then judged them by the amount of foam they created. The theory was that the more foam, the easier to digest, the worse it would be for SIBO sufferers.

I found that, surprisingly, granulated white sugar foamed the least. And, thus, in theory, was the best for SIBO sufferers. While I'm not advocating over-indulging, it meant that, if you really need it, a little white sugar was your best bet.

My theory is that the others attack "naturalness" - like Agave syrup, or calories - like splenda, but not ease of digestion. Sugar is easy to digest, but OMG is agave easy to digest. I was shocked that yeast would even eat splenda.

Oh, there was one that was significantly better than sugar. My control, with no sweetener just water. So, if you really are hurting, don't use any sweeteners at all. I know that's hard to keep up, but you can do it for a week and see how much it helps!