Chronic pancreatitis - diets
Chronic pancreatitis is mostly a self inflicted disease. It is a sad state indeed, when we see patients paying a lot of money to destroy a precious gift - their health. Chronic pancreatitis treatment goals are few - pain relief, management of the patient's nutrition and restoration of the quality of life to as near normal as possible. A word of warning: have a complete evaluation for the disease. All these are useful only in uncomplicated chronic pancreatitis and also as an adjunct to treatment when using other methods.
The goals of dietary management are to restore or control weight loss and control steatorrhea. It is easy to state these goals in paper. But it takes a lot of effort to achieve them in practice. Needless to say, 90 % of the effort is from the patient and his family. To achieve these goals, it is important that you abstain from alcohol first – this leads to 50 % relief of pain in CCP. Now, even though it looks elementary, I will say this - no treatment is going to be of benefit if you are going to continue to drink alcohol and also smoke. You must quit both if you want to have a meaningful change in your treatment.
What should you eat? Frequent meals, by which I mean eat every 2 - 3 hours, in small quantities. It is like dividing all that you would eat in three meals and divide them into 6 meals. The diet should be balanced - make it carbohydrate rich, take proteins at 1 - 1.5 g/kg/day ( about 70 g - 100 g per day) and fat, half it taken as medium chain triglycerides. You would also need supplementary vitamins on a regular basis.
I have suggested a few foods which I recommend to my patients. I am sure you can browse for more details in the internet. I would suggest the three basic foods with low fat high protein in Indian foods - lentils, nuts and paneer. It is important to keep the protien intake high to maintain your health. White meat like chicken can be taken by patients with chronic pancreatitis. Please don't mistake a low fat diet to be a "no fat diet". you need to have fat to supply at least 30 % of your calories. Do not take cola drinks or any gas forming drinks.
When would you need enzyme supplementation? We give enzyme supplementation when you have weight loss, steatorrhea or pain. In India, it is difficult to give these expensive medications on a continuous basis. Our patients do take these medications, but I do find them skipping the medications quite regularly. Adequate enzyme supplementation is decided by getting you to stabilise or gain weight, have symptomatic relief of diarrhea and objectively, a decrease in 72 hour fecal fat excretion.
Occasional pain killer use is not wrong. If you have pain on a regular basis and need to be on a pain killer to do your daily activities, seek medical help. The doctor would evaluate you for cause of the pain and suggest treatment accordingly.
The goals of dietary management are to restore or control weight loss and control steatorrhea. It is easy to state these goals in paper. But it takes a lot of effort to achieve them in practice. Needless to say, 90 % of the effort is from the patient and his family. To achieve these goals, it is important that you abstain from alcohol first – this leads to 50 % relief of pain in CCP. Now, even though it looks elementary, I will say this - no treatment is going to be of benefit if you are going to continue to drink alcohol and also smoke. You must quit both if you want to have a meaningful change in your treatment.
What should you eat? Frequent meals, by which I mean eat every 2 - 3 hours, in small quantities. It is like dividing all that you would eat in three meals and divide them into 6 meals. The diet should be balanced - make it carbohydrate rich, take proteins at 1 - 1.5 g/kg/day ( about 70 g - 100 g per day) and fat, half it taken as medium chain triglycerides. You would also need supplementary vitamins on a regular basis.
I have suggested a few foods which I recommend to my patients. I am sure you can browse for more details in the internet. I would suggest the three basic foods with low fat high protein in Indian foods - lentils, nuts and paneer. It is important to keep the protien intake high to maintain your health. White meat like chicken can be taken by patients with chronic pancreatitis. Please don't mistake a low fat diet to be a "no fat diet". you need to have fat to supply at least 30 % of your calories. Do not take cola drinks or any gas forming drinks.
When would you need enzyme supplementation? We give enzyme supplementation when you have weight loss, steatorrhea or pain. In India, it is difficult to give these expensive medications on a continuous basis. Our patients do take these medications, but I do find them skipping the medications quite regularly. Adequate enzyme supplementation is decided by getting you to stabilise or gain weight, have symptomatic relief of diarrhea and objectively, a decrease in 72 hour fecal fat excretion.
Occasional pain killer use is not wrong. If you have pain on a regular basis and need to be on a pain killer to do your daily activities, seek medical help. The doctor would evaluate you for cause of the pain and suggest treatment accordingly.
Wonderful explanation and clear plan. Thanks for the information!!
ReplyDeleteI always heard chronic pancreatitis from my friends and I decided to find some resources to tell me about this topic. I found your post contains the information I'm looking for. I learned many important ideas about chronic pancreatitis. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteYou are most welcome
Delete