Trust your gut part 2: Common misconceptions

Key Takeaways:

• Not everyone needs to be or should be on a gluten-free diet.
• Those who need to take proton pump inhibitors to manage acid reflux should do so.
• A diagnosis of diverticulitis does not mean eliminating nuts and seeds from your diet.

In part one, we talked about popular gut-health social media trends and their legitimacy.

For this part, we’re going to address a few common misconceptions related to gut health.

Is a gluten-free diet broadly beneficial, or is it just for those with celiac disease?

There are a lot of people who follow gluten free diet. 

There are two aspects to it:

There is celiac disease, which is a true allergy to gluten that manifests inside your duodenum, the first part of the small intestine, and can cause inflammation, ulcers and health consequences. 

There’s also something called non-celiac gluten sensitivity, where your gut is sensitive to gluten. Those people might also benefit from a gluten-free diet. 

Having said that, not everybody needs to be on a gluten-free diet because there are lots of good foods that contain gluten, and you will miss out on a lot of good nutrition if you eliminate an entire diet or group of foods from your diet. 

When you suddenly change your diet completely, remove a whole food group, or multiple food groups from your diet: your gut bacteria also change accordingly, and that’s also not good. 

You want a lot of diverse good bacteria in your gut, and once you stop eating a particular food, it’s very hard to come back to that food because then you must rebuild your gut bacteria to be able to tolerate those foods.

When people go on and off different kinds of diets, it is not very good for the diversity and health of gut bacteria.

So, I would say no, a gluten-free diet is not for everybody.

Some people say proton pump inhibitors for acid reflux, like omeprazole, aren’t safe. Is that true?

It is safe, and if you need it, you should use it.

There’s a lot of information out there about the negative side effects of proton pump inhibitors. Using it in moderation, using it when you need it, and talking to your gastroenterologist or getting an opinion from a gastroenterologist is not a bad idea in that case. But do not be afraid of them.

A lot of the side effects that were initially attributed to them were debunked by follow-up GI studies, and the only side effect that has held up is the small chance of enteric infections.

Other than that, there are no other proven negative side effects of proton pump inhibitors. 

If you need them, please do not hesitate to take them unless you have a very strong contraindication for them.

True or false: Diverticulitis = no seeds or nuts

There’s one age-old myth about diverticulitis and seeds, popcorn, etc. that people still hold on to, for some reason, and I would like to debunk that myth.

If you have diverticula or diverticulosis, or a history of diverticulitis (meaning you’ve had inflammation or infection in those diverticula), you don’t have to eliminate all seeds and nuts from your diet.

If you eat any of those and get symptoms from them, then be cautious. If you’re eating popcorn, just eat the popped corn, not the kernels, and chew them well. You do not have to give up nuts or fruits like strawberries. Do not swallow them whole. But, you do not have to give up any of those things from your diet.