Diet for Active Ulcerative Colitis

Ulcerative colitis, one of several disorders known collectively as inflammatory bowel disease, is a condition in which ulcers form on the colon wall in areas where the normal cells that line the large intestine have been killed by inflammation. A disease that most often strikes the young, ulcerative colitis is seen frequently in families and causes a number of unpleasant symptoms. These include abdominal pain, bloody diarrhea, loss of appetite, weight loss, anemia, fatigue and rectal bleeding. Diet is not a cause of this disorder, but better eating habits can help to ease its symptoms.

The Importance of Diet

• Medication can be very helpful in keeping the symptoms of ulcerative colitis under control, sometimes for lengthy periods of remission. However, when the condition is active, what you eat can make a difference in how you feel and help to ease the severity of the disease's symptoms. General dietary guidelines for active ulcerative colitis patients include the following tips: Avoid foods that seem to cause your symptoms to worsen; keep a food diary so that you can note the interrelationship between what you eat and how you feel; drink plenty of fluids; eat frequent but smaller meals; minimize your consumption of high-fat dairy foods, nuts, seeds, popcorn and high-fiber foods; and try to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables, low-fat dairy foods, nutrient-dense foods such as cereals and whole wheat bread, and lean meats.

  There is no evidence to implicate any single food as a culprit in exacerbating the symptoms of ulcerative colitis. However, these are general guidelines that contain cautionary notes about foods that have caused problems for others who suffer from the condition. Keeping a food diary is important so that you can track what you are eating and how your body is responding to it. What may be a problem food for one ulcerative colitis patient may have little or no effect on your symptoms. All that said, however, it is probably a good idea to minimize (not eliminate) your consumption of foods such as nuts, seeds and popcorn, all of which can become stuck in your inflamed colon, causing an obstruction that will only make matters worse.

Other Dietary Considerations

• No matter what you eat, you want to be certain that you are getting all the nutrition that your body needs on a daily basis. It is a given that good nutrition in the end will help you to gain the upper hand on almost any medical condition. It is particularly important in patients with ulcerative colitis, because some of its symptoms---namely diarrhea and rectal bleeding---can leach vital electrolytes, fluids and nutrients from your system. This makes it all the more important that you eat a nutritionally balanced and healthy diet to ensure that you are replacing some of the important nutrients you are losing.