Help Me! :o

[Mrs. Smith]

I have been Gluten-Free 1 year and I am having some issues with fructose and inulin. The whole topic is so confusing. When I eat agave, I have a violent reaction of intestinal pain and D. Also experience this with FOS/inulin. Are the two related? Do I have to cut out all sugars or just these ones? Will it get better when my intestine are healed? I seem to do fine with honey and sugar. Is the agave just TOO MUCH? I know its really high in fructose. Im so confused!! I dont know what to do or where to start. I already cant eat gluten or dairy. I really dont want to quit fruit, veggies, coconut but I want to have a normal bm which sometimes I do eating these foods in moderation. If anyone has knowlege on the subject or has experienced this please help! Thank YOU!!

[gf-soph]

Hi. I was on a fructose diet for a while recently, so I can tell you what I know about it. Everything below is based on my dietician's explanation and a little research I did to clarify. Hope I can explain this properly....

Fructose is a multi-chain sugar which needs to be actively absorbed across the intestinal wall through special channels. People differ in the amount of these channels that they have, and some people aren't able to absorb all the fructose they eat. When it isn't absorbed it stays in your bowel and ferments, causing pain, D and gas etc.

Glucose is a basic sugar that can absorb directly across the intestinal wall, so people who have trouble with fructose don't have the same trouble with glucose. If you eat a food that has glucose and fructose together, the glucose can drag the fructose through the intestinal wall, bypassing problems you have absorbing it through a limited number of channels.

The diet I was put on emphasises that you should eat fruits that have more glucose than fructose, rather than avoiding any fructose altogether. There are still plenty of fruits and veggies that you can eat under this diet. If you google "sue shepherd fructose" you can find a pdf of an article she wrote that explains this in more detail. It also has a table categorising some common foods into which are ok for the fructose diet.

My understanding is that fructose malabsorption won

[Mrs. Smith]

Thank you so much that really helped alot!! I think I really just over do it sometimes. I love to find new foods so much that I just dont moderate them very well. Im going to stay fructose light including honey and see if my system calms down, the inulin fiber was making everything worse. I didnt have a problem with it until I overloaded my system. I have GOT to learn moderation it is very hard for me since going on this diet. Thank you for helping me understand fructose. SO confusing. lol!

[woodnewt]

Inulin is FOS. It is naturally occurring in a few plant foods, but is being added to more and more foods as a fiber booster/health supplement.

Inulin being added to food as a fiber-booster/health supplement without label warnings is really something that needs to change. Inulin is a PRE-biotic. It is a fertilizer for your gut microbes. Companies like to highlight the good bacteria it feeds. They do not emphasize that it can also feed bad bacteria and yeast.

If you would like any advice, I will give it to you now: cut out all inulin. Do not eat anything with "inulin" or "chicory" as an added ingredient. I would avoid agave as well. It's being boasted as health food right now, but it's just a fancy name for inulin syrup.

If you have become extremely sensitive to inulin, you may need to avoid all naturally occurring inulin as well. You might have to avoid fructose for a while too, but the fructose is NOT a pre-biotic, so you should eventually be able to eat it again safely. But go slowly.