Frighteningly Doctors are now even prescribing laxatives to babies and children. What an indictment of the state of the UK health care that it can't even get the basics right and ensure our bodies are healthy enough to pooh regularly without chemical assistance. 

 

Does pooh bear pooh in the woods? is piglet full of stuffing? It seems they are far less likely to have problems compared to most of the UK population.

 

I really don't find it acceptable at all that one of the NHS's biggest expenditures is on laxatives. I was incredulous to find a toddler brought to me for treatment by his exasperated mother had been prescribed laxatives by the family Doctor.

 

The BBC report over 10% of the population are regularly constipated and there are around 14 million sufferers.

 

I suspect the vast majority of these sufferers could be helped with simple dietary changes that include more water and more fruit and vegetables.

 

Contrary to the image promoted by The Pooh Doctor (Dr Gillian McKieth) it is not normal practice to don a pair of rubber gloves and start fondling your body waste. It is however a corner stone of a healthy body and thus diet and nutrition therapy will involve a certain amount of discussion about the subject.

 

Modern diets and lifestyles wreak havoc on our digestion but there are many things that can be done to naturally coax your digestive system back to normality.

 

When I say normal I'm afraid I don't mean 2 or 3 times per week. A good nutrititionist will be hoping for 2-3 times a day - one pooh for every meal occassion. One exit for every entry.

 

Irritable Bowel Syndrome ( IBS ) is now reaching epidemic proportions with the BBC reporting 1 in 5 or 20% of the population likely to suffer from IBS.

 

One of the problems of IBS is that it covers a multitude of sins and often just means that the Doctor is flumaxed by what's causing it. Doctors will often just prescribe a high fibre cereal, which will often be interpreted as something like Allbran with milk. All-bran is unlikely to help as it's the leftovers of wheat from all that white bread and sugar and salt.

 

If the problem is anything to do with a food intolerance then wheat, sugar and dairy may make things worse than better. If you've ever left a bowl of high fibre cereal for a few hours then tried to wash up you'll know what a hard sticky glue it can become. You think that's going to help?

 

Kelloggs bless them have lots of healthy suggestions - apparently it's hard to find dietary fibre these days, well maybe, if you only shop at KFC, Burger King, or Pizza Hut - do they not have fruit and veg up there in Warrington? Certainly even McDonalds have bags of fruit, pots of salad and a vegetarian society approved burger these days.

 

Kelloggs solution is a fruit and fibre bar - oh but doh! I don't think that's going to help - it has almost ten times as much sugar as fibre.

 

Here's the ingredients

 

Whole Wheat, Dried Fruit (17%) (Raisins, Coconut, Banana (Flavouring), Apple), Glucose Syrup, Sugar, Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil, Fructose, Dextrose, Wheat Bran, Humectant (Sorbitol, Glycerol), Dried Skimmed Milk, Wheat Flour, Rice Flour, Salt, Barley Malt Flavouring, Milk Fat, Calcium Carbonate, Milk Sugar, Honey, Emulsifier (Soy Lecithin), Flavourings, Antioxidant (E320), Niacin, Iron, Vitamin B6, Riboflavin (B2), Thiamin (B1), Folic Acid, Vitamin B12.

 

Hmmm mmm Hmmmm how many types of added sugar did you spot?

 

Fortunately with all digestive issues, and especially irritable bowel syndrome, qualified nutrition therapists have a whole range of diet and nutrition tools they can use and a list of state of the art laboratory tests they can use for further investigation into the root cause of the problem.