How to Solve Diarrhea Problems Naturally

How to Solve Diarrhea Problems Naturally

Nearly everyone suffers from diarrhea once in a while. Stomach cramps and loose, watery stools strike some people when they are nervous or upset and others when they over-indulge in succulent summer fruit. Diarrhea frequently adds to the miseries of winter viruses and flu, too.

Such occurrences of diarrhea are usually self-limiting and will take care of themselves. Chronic diarrhea, however, can indicate a serious ailment (such as colitis) and should be checked by a doctor.

Diarrhea in babies

This can be very serious because infants are so easily dehydrated. In treating infectious diarrhea in infants, doctors often tell mothers to omit milk from the diet and replace it with 'clear fluids', including carbonated beverages, juices and soups such as chicken and beef broth. However, many such fluids contain so much sugar or salt that they actually may worsen and prolong the baby's illness, according to studies at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto (Canadian Medical Association Journal, 8 September 1979).

The high sugar content of many carbonated beverages, juices, and other liquids may cause sugar-induced diarrhea. It has been recommended that beverages containing a lot of sugar be diluted to at least half strength to avoid problems.

High concentrations of salt, common in some prepared soups, pose another potential hazard. Too much salt in dehydrated children can make them vulnerable to complications such as seizures and irreversible brain damage. Because of the extraordinarily high salt content of many commercial kinds of soup, the researchers suggested that homemade soups with no added salt might be more acceptable.

Dangerously high amounts of salt or sugar also can arise when liquids are prepared from crystals or concentrate, the researchers noted. Adding extra amounts from a package or incorrect measuring can make the salt or sugar levels higher than they should be.

The (US) Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia recommend the following as one type of homemade fluid therapy to combat dehydration: combine 8 Fl. oz of fruit juice (orange, apple or other), half a teaspoon of honey and a pinch of salt in a glass. In a second glass combine 8 Fl. oz of boiled or carbonated water and a quarter teaspoon of baking soda. Have the baby drink alternately each mixture. Additional carbonated beverages or water should be drunk and solid foods and milk should be avoided until recovery.

Breast milk protects against diarrhea

Breastfed babies are far less likely to develop dangerous intestinal infections than bottle-fed babies, say two California pediatricians. Over a period of two years, Spencer A. Larsen, Jr. and Daryl R. Homer studied all the infants under one-year-old who were admitted with severe vomiting and diarrhea to the Kaiser — Permanente Medical Group hospital in Hayward California. Of the 107 babies, they found that only one was breastfed at the time of admission — far fewer than in the general population served by the medical group.

About one-third of the hospitalized bottle-fed infants was breastfed at birth, the doctors said, but all had gone on the bottle at least a month before they became sick. These findings suggest that 'breastfeeding plays a major role in protection against intestinal infections,' the researchers concluded, and they pointed out that similar studies in Britain and in underdeveloped countries have shown the same thing.

Natural remedies for diarrhea

Some common food substances have proved remarkably useful against diarrhea.

Carob powder In a Canadian study of 230 infants with diarrhea only three was not cured by the addition of carob powder to their formula. The treatment apparently worked because carob contains high levels of fiber which, as recent research has shown, can clear up digestive problems including diarrhea.

Yogurt This seems to be beneficial in maintaining or restoring the health of the intestinal tract. 'In many countries along the Mediterranean Sea and in the Balkans, yogurt has been used for years as a remedy for infantile diarrhea by both laymen and physicians,' wrote Drs Molly Nov, Walter Levy and Nathan M. Greenstein in Clinical Pediatrics.

The three doctors fed yogurt to half of a group of children hospitalized with severe diarrhea. Those in the yogurt group ate a little less than 4 Fl. oz three times daily while the rest of the children received an anti-diarrhoeal drug. More children in the yogurt group than in the drug group recovered within three days.

Brian The normal functioning of the intestinal tract depends on upon the press- once of adequate fiber — the kind that absorbs water and forms soft bulk. Fibre like brand. Bran relieves both constipation and diarrhea. It is not a laxative; it is a normalizer of bowel functions. Transit times — the amount of time it takes for food to pass through the body — are lengthened in individuals with chronic diarrhea who eat bran, but they are shortened in those with constipation. Bran thickens the loose, watery stools of diarrhea and softens the hard, dry stools of constipation. A few tablespoons (less for a child) followed by a glass of water should do the trick in a few days. If diarrhea persists, see your doctor.

Pectin This is a fiber found in fruit, particularly apple cherries, bananas and citrus fruit. 'Pectin allows water to be absorbed from the colon,' says Dr. David Jenkins of the University of Toronto, 'and has been given to individuals with chronic diarrhea.

One group of people who might benefit from pectin are those who have 'dumping syndrome'. Not long after eating, they may suffer from dizziness, abdominal discomfort, and diarrhea, caused by the too-rapid movement of food and fluid through their digestive tracts. British doctors successfully used pectin to treat dumping syndrome in 11 patients recovering from abdominal surgery (Lancet, 16 May 1981). After drinking a glucose solution, all of these patients soon suffered characteristic gastrointestinal distress accompanied by hypoglycemia (low blood sugar). However, when 1/3 oz of pectin was added to the solution, their symptoms were either abolished or reduced, and blood glucose levels were kept under better control.

Pectin added to the glucose meal slowed gastric emptying, ' the researchers noted, 'and since dumping is related to rapid emptying, the abolition or reduction of symptoms in our patients was almost certainly due to the slower transfer of glucose from the stomach to the small gut [intestine].

Traditional remedies These include eating Gruyere cheese, brown rice, barley or bananas, or drinking a tea made from mallow root or wild thyme.

'Chewing-gum' diarrhea

A 66-year-old woman who was a patient of two doctors in Miami Beach, had a three-month history of severe chronic diarrhea, having to go to the toilet between 12 and 50 times a day. Yet, there was no mucus, blood, cramp, fever nutritional deficiency or other signs of real illness. X-rays and probes of various kinds revealed nothing of interest. Making it all the more frustrating, every kind of anti-diarrhoea medicine in the book was tried without success.

What was the problem?

Chewing gum, her doctors say. 'When dietary history was re-examined at length,' they wrote in the American Journal of Digestive Diseases, 'it was revealed that the patient habitually chewed 50 to 100 sticks of sugarless chewing gum daily, to aid her in weight reduction. Upon abrupt withdrawal of chewing gum, all diarrhea ceased and gastrointestinal complaints abated. '

The explanation for this chewing-gum effect is that most sugarless gums — as well as many foods for diabetics — contain sorbitol, and this, it turns out tends to have a laxative effect in large doses. Usually, in an adult, that effect would not be noticed unless the person was consuming 10 or more pieces of gum a day. At the rate of 50 or even 100 a day, the effect can be disastrous. Drs Lee D. Goldberg and Norman T. Ditchek dubbed the syndrome 'chewing-gum diarrhea'.

(See also TRAVELER'S DIARRHEA.)