Do you suffer from heartburn? Is an ulcer bothering you? Are the difficult symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome compromising your life? If so, you are not alone. You are that one out of every three Americans that suffers from chronic digestive problems.
Whether it's constipation, diarrhea, gas, hemorrhoids, ulcers, heartburn, colitis, gallstones, or one of the many other digestive tract problems, Dr. Steven Peikin's self-help nutritional program will help keep you out of the doctor's office -- and feeling great.
Based on the latest research and his own clinical experience, Dr. Peikin prescribes a healthy diet high in fiber and low in fat, spices, lactose, and caffeine. He provides a detailed list of "flag foods" to avoid in the case of specific problems; shows you how to use exercise, over-the-counter drugs, prescription drugs, and stress management to complement the program; and offers advice for coordinating the program with weight loss (or weight gain), working with medical professionals, and measuring progress.
The science of nutrition is a changing field, and different concepts become fashionable almost weekly. New reports seem to contradict what has gone before and, invariably, new fads based on incomplete data emerge.
Amid the confusion, American eating habits have undergone profound changes. Today, one-third of our meals are consumed outside the home; when we do eat at home, we often resort to prepared convenience foods. All of us have to struggle harder to maintain nutritional balance, and the struggle is more difficult for people with GI disorders who are subject to severe and debilitating symptoms.
Many become fixated on their next meal, worrying in advance about their reactions. They know instinctively that some foods make their problems worse, but don't know how to establish a nutritional routine they can depend on. In frustration, some people end up eating almost nothing. Existing on too little food, smoking too much for oral gratification, which makes the GI disorder worse, they are often irritable and frustrated.
Double Trouble
One patient of ours was a twenty-eight-year-old ballet dancer who constantly yo-yoed on and off weight-loss diets to maintain a perfectly slim body. At the same time, she was under high performance stress. While still in her teens Margo began to have severe and sudden stomach cramps, followed by diarrhea; she had her first ulcer attack on her twenty-first birthday. She had suffered on and off from both problems ever since. Although Margo had taken many different drugs in an effort to control the various symptoms, she was still vulnerable to sudden, painful attacks that sometimes lasted weeks at a time. And as so commonly happens with GI patients, the foods recommended for one condition were problems for the other.
Margo came to us after a long bout of cramps and diarrhea that had left her frustrated and weak. We diagnosed her symptoms as irritable bowel syndrome, and recommended that she follow the Two-Week Master Program. We also suggested that she join a stop-smoking group because we felt certain that cigarettes were aggravating her symptoms.
Even though Margo had voluntarily sought our help, she seemed ambivalent about taking our advice. I wondered if there was something about her illness that she was keeping from me. After talking with her about her profession it became obvious that Margo liked one of the side effects of her GI disorder -- it helped keep her weight down. Margo's symptoms were often so severe that she couldn't eat anything at all. She would go to parties and dinners and smoke cigarettes -- but never touch a morsel of food. The cigarettes, which raised her already high rate of metabolism even further, supplied the oral gratification she missed from food.
There was another element working against any program to treat her disorder -- she had a high tolerance for pain. Her profession sometimes required that she endure extreme muscle pain, and dance through periods of exhaustion. Physical suffering seemed fairly normal to her.
The magic words that finally convinced Margo to get serious about the Self-Help Nutritional Program were "You can eat three meals a day on the Two-Week Program and you will not gain weight."
Margo was a hard case. Interestingly enough, however, once she "got" it -- once she accepted the fact that she could eat real food and be free from pain without gaining weight -- it was a snap for her to start the program and stick to it. She was so naturally disciplined that she thought nothing of following the regimen.
One element of the program especially appealed to her.
Steven R. Peikin, m.d., is professor of medicine and head of gastroenterology at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey Robert Wood-Johnson Medical School at Camden, Cooper Hospital/University Medical Center. He has been a fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and a clinical associate at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Peikin is the author of The Complete Book of Diet Drugs. He lives in Chestnut Hill, New Jersey, with his wife and children.
