FODMAP Diet | Diet vs Disease

5 Things the New Diverticulitis Guidelines Just Confirmed – Dietitian Explains

Joe Leech, Dietitian (MSc Nutrition & Dietetics) — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 14:53:56 +0000

Every year, roughly 1.7 million people in the US see a doctor because of diverticulitis. And a huge number of them walk away with different advice from different doctors — or no advice at all, leaving them to search online and land in a pile of conflicting information. Avoid nuts and seeds. Actually, that’s outdated. Take antibiotics every time you flare. That’s not evidence-based either. Take an anti-inflammatory to reduce your recurrence risk. The trials say it doesn’t work. The good news is that this confusion is finally being addressed. The American College of Gastroenterology (ACG) — the leading professional body for gut doctors in the US — just published its most comprehensive diverticulitis guidelines ever. They reviewed decades of evidence, decades of clinical habit, and patient experience, and put it all in writing. And a lot of what they[Discover More...]

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Scientists Found This in Diverticular Disease Patients

Joe Leech, Dietitian (MSc Nutrition & Dietetics) — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 16:26:49 +0000

If you’ve been through a diverticulitis flare (maybe more than once), you know the routine. Severe pain, antibiotics or a hospital stay, a liquid diet, then a slow climb back to normal. And then it’s supposed to be over. Except for a lot of people, it isn’t quite over. The dull ache that comes and goes. The bloating that never fully settles. Bowel habits that stay unpredictable long after the flare has technically resolved. A study published this year in Scientific Reports looked at the gut bacteria of people stuck in exactly that in-between zone — and the results may finally explain why. Below is a video we made; there is also a written version underneath. The Condition Most Doctors Never Name There’s a term for this middle ground that most patients, and plenty of GPs, have never heard: SUDD,[Discover More...]

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5 Signs Your IBS Isn’t About Food

Joe Leech, Dietitian (MSc Nutrition & Dietetics) — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 14:08:24 +0000

If even your “safe foods” are starting to feel like a trigger, food probably isn’t the real problem. For a lot of people with IBS, the gut is reacting to something that has nothing to do with what’s actually on the plate. Diet can matter a lot for some people. But for others, months or years of cutting, tracking, and restricting never gets them anywhere close to relief, simply because food was never the main driver in the first place. This is the pattern behind questions like: “Why is the same lunch fine on Tuesday and a disaster on Thursday?” Or, “I’ve cut almost everything, so why am I still not better?” Or, “Why do my symptoms start before I’ve even eaten?” In this article, I’ll walk through five signs that point toward a different driver behind your IBS, and[Discover More...]

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Prevent Diverticulitis Recurrence: 5 Things To Fix Before Your Next Flare

Joe Leech, Dietitian (MSc Nutrition & Dietetics) — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 08:46:21 +0000

As a gut health dietitian service, we see a lot of diverticulitis cases — and honestly, the pattern we see most often is this: someone has a flare, they recover, they change nothing, and a few months later they’re back in the ER. Not because they did anything wrong, but because nobody told them what to actually fix. I was on a call with a client last month who’d just come out of hospital with her second diverticulitis flare in two years. She said, “Joe, they gave me antibiotics, a leaflet about soft foods, and sent me home. Same as last time. Nobody told me why it keeps happening.” That’s a conversation I have constantly, and it’s exactly why I put this together. Here are the 5 things you should be doing after a flare, and why most people never[Discover More...]

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Top 5 IBS Red Flags Patients Ignore

Joe Leech, Dietitian (MSc Nutrition & Dietetics) — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 07:29:54 +0000

I want to preface this by saying a majority of people with IBS aren’t ignoring warning signs because they’re careless. They’re ignoring them because they’ve been told everything is fine. Normal colonoscopy. Normal bloods. Here’s a food list. Off you go. And then years pass, and they’re still planning their days around the nearest bathroom. Below, I walk through five red flags that IBS patients, and honestly a lot of GPs, commonly miss. Many of these are signs that your current plan isn’t good enough, and what you can do about it. Here’s a video we made; there is also a written version underneath. Red Flag 1: Your Symptoms Are Changing or Getting Worse IBS tends to be variable, but most people develop a sense of their pattern over time. If your symptoms have genuinely shifted — new kinds of[Discover More...]

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Low FODMAP Diet Basics: What I’d Do in the First 7 Days

Joe Leech, Dietitian (MSc Nutrition & Dietetics) — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 15:37:38 +0000

Most people start the low FODMAP diet the same way: they delete half their diet on day one. By day three, they’re eating plain chicken and rice, running out of ideas, and quietly wondering if there’s anything left they can actually eat. That’s not a failure of willpower. That’s a failure of having a plan. If you’ve Googled “low FODMAP diet” and felt instantly overwhelmed by giant food tables and fifty different serving sizes to memorize, you’re not alone. Most people quit before they ever really start properly — not because the diet doesn’t work, but because week one goes wrong in predictable ways. Below, I walk through exactly what I’d do in the first seven days: what to pull out, what to keep, what to eat, and the traps that catch most beginners before they ever get to reintroduction.[Discover More...]

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