Peppermint could ease pain in gut

By Martha Filipic

I suf­fer from irri­ta­ble bowel syn­drome. I heard that pep­per­mint might help ease my symp­toms, but it sounds like folk­lore to me. How true is it?

Start steep­ing the pep­per­mint tea. Accord­ing to recent research, pep­per­mint really could help ease the abdom­i­nal pain asso­ci­ated with irri­ta­ble bowel syn­drome, or IBS.

Accord­ing to the Inter­na­tional Foun­da­tion for Func­tional Gas­troin­testi­nal Dis­or­ders, IBS affects at least one in 10 peo­ple. Although they vary widely, symp­toms com­monly include abdom­i­nal pain and cramp­ing, bloat­ing, gas, diar­rhea or con­sti­pa­tion (or, sur­pris­ingly, both), and mucus in the stool. It’s not a dis­ease, but a “func­tional dis­or­der,” mean­ing the bowel sim­ply doesn’t func­tion like it should.

IBS is a chronic con­di­tion. Some peo­ple have mild symp­toms and never see a doc­tor about them; oth­ers expe­ri­ence a great deal of dis­com­fort. For­tu­nately, IBS doesn’t appear to dam­age the intestines or increase the risk of can­cer or other disease.

Pep­per­mint oil has been avail­able in cap­sule and liq­uid form for years, and advo­cates of alter­na­tive med­i­cine have sworn by its abil­ity to relieve indi­ges­tion caused by irri­ta­ble bowel syn­drome. Now, sci­en­tists believe they have uncov­ered how it works.

The recent study, released online in April before being pub­lished in the inter­na­tional jour­nal Pain, was con­ducted by researchers in Australia’s Uni­ver­sity of Ade­laide Nerve-Gut Research Lab­o­ra­tory. They found that a com­pound in pep­per­mint called icilin acti­vates an “anti-pain” chan­nel in the colon, sooth­ing pain caused by inflam­ma­tion that can be trig­gered by some foods, such as mus­tard or chili.

For most adults, pep­per­mint oil appears to be safe in small doses. Heart­burn has been iden­ti­fied as a poten­tial side effect.

Whether or not you want to try pep­per­mint, you should know there are other steps you can take for relief, too. The National Diges­tive Dis­eases Infor­ma­tion Clear­ing­house offers easy-to-read guide­lines online at digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/ibs_ez/. Among its rec­om­men­da­tions is to avoid foods that may trig­ger symp­toms, which often include:

• Fatty foods, such as french fries.

• Milk prod­ucts, such as cheese or ice cream.

• Choco­late.

• Alco­hol.

• Caf­feinated drinks, such as cof­fee and some sodas.

• Car­bon­ated drinks, such as soda.

In addi­tion, other foods — those high in fiber — could ease symp­toms. They include fruits such as apples and peaches; veg­eta­bles such as cab­bage, peas, broc­coli and car­rots; beans such as kid­ney or lima beans; and whole-grain breads and cere­als. Grad­u­ally increase the amount of high-fiber foods you eat to avoid exces­sive gas and bloating.

Eat­ing smaller meals also may help.

Chow Line is a ser­vice of Ohio State Uni­ver­sity Exten­sion and the Ohio Agri­cul­tural Research and Devel­op­ment Cen­ter. Send ques­tions to Chow Line, c/o Martha Fil­ipic, 2021 Cof­fey Road, Colum­bus, OH 43210–1044, or filipic.3@cfaes.osu.edu.

Posted by Martha Filipic on Jul 31 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.