Diet taboos for patients with intestinal polyps

There is no "death penalty food" that patients with intestinal polyps must not touch. The three types of high-risk foods that need to be vigilant most are processed meat products, high-sugar foods with excessive added sugar, and high-salt pickled/repeated fried foods. The rest of the dietary adjustment depends more on individual tolerance and consumption. Don't be scared by the messy "food lists" on the Internet and dare not eat anything.

Last week, I met a 32-year-old programmer in the clinic. He had just cut off two hyperplastic polyps with a diameter of 0.3cm. He came to me with the "Intestinal Polyps Fasting List" searched in a certain red book and asked me if milk, eggs, seafood, beef and mutton were all taboos. In the past six months, he had been eating boiled vegetables and lost 12 pounds. The last time he checked, his albumin was a little low, which made me angry. This is not nourishing the intestines, but starving the stomach.

To be honest, the academic community has not yet reached a completely unified conclusion on "which foods directly cause polyp recurrence". For example, red meat is what everyone is most concerned about. Cohort studies in Europe and the United States say that people who consume more than 500g of cooked red meat per week have a 23% higher risk of recurrence of adenomatous polyps than those who consume less. Therefore, European and American guidelines recommend eating as little as possible. ； But there are also domestic studies that show that as long as you don’t eat it every day, but eat braised pork and beef with soy sauce two or three times a week, as long as you don’t exceed the amount, the impact on the recurrence of polyps is almost negligible. After all, our dietary structure is inherently different from that of Europeans and Americans who eat steak every day.

Many people think that after polyp removal, they have to eat light meals, including plain porridge and pickles. This is the real trap. I once had a 62-year-old patient who had two small polyps removed for the first time. When he went home, he heard others say that he needed to "nourish his intestines and stomach." He drank white porridge with pickled dried radish every day. After six months of reexamination, three more polyps appeared, more than before. Think about it, the intestinal mucosa is like the wall of your bathroom. There are small wounds that need to be repaired after polyps are removed. If you don't provide enough nutrition every day, the wall is already thin, and you pour high-salt water on it every day. Nitrite repeatedly stimulates the mucosa to cause inflammation, so won't it be easy for new small polyps to grow?

Oh, by the way, many people asked me if they can eat spicy food? I always ask, do you get diarrhea or stomachache after eating spicy food? If nothing happens after eating, you should eat. You see, the incidence of intestinal polyps in Sichuan and Chongqing is not higher than that in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, where people eat spicy food. What you really need to pay attention to is the kind that causes diarrhea after eating chili peppers and anal burning. It means that capsaicin stimulates excessive intestinal peristalsis and the mucous membrane is repeatedly rubbed. Avoid touching this kind of food. It depends on personal tolerance and there is no unified standard.

Another thing that people tend to overlook is high-sugar foods, especially milk tea, cream cakes, sweet drinks that are full of added sugar, and those that only eat refined white rice and white noodles without eating a single bite of whole grains. Two years ago, there was a 26-year-old girl. Her office drawer was full of cakes and candies, and a cup of milk tea a day was standard. Adenomatous polyps were found during a physical examination. She was wondering, why did she grow polyps even if I don't usually eat spicy food or salty food? To put it bluntly, if you eat too much refined sugar and not enough dietary fiber, you will overeat the harmful bacteria in the intestines, the flora will be disordered, and the mucous membranes will be stimulated by harmful metabolites for a long time, which will easily lead to problems. It doesn’t mean that you should not eat white rice and flour at all. When steaming rice, grab a handful of brown rice and oats and mix it in. Drink milk tea no more than twice a week. That is enough.

Oh, yes, there is also alcohol. This is a high-risk factor that is consistent in all current guidelines. Whether it is white wine, beer or red wine, alcohol will damage the intestinal mucosal barrier. If you can, try to quit. Of course, it doesn’t mean that you will get cancer if you drink it just once. There are social events that you really can’t avoid. It’s okay to drink low-alcohol wine once or twice a year. Don’t scare yourself. But if you have to drink two drinks every day, then you really need to be careful.

In fact, there is no need to take dietary taboos so seriously. I have seen people who strictly follow dietary taboos every day and still relapse, and I have also seen people who occasionally ate hot pot and barbecue and had regular reviews without any problems. The key is not to let your intestines be "overloaded" every day. Don't eat high-fat, high-sugar and high-salt foods as a daily routine. What is more important than remembering various taboos is to listen to the doctor's instructions and conduct regular reviews - adenomatous polyps should undergo a colonoscopy once every 1-2 years, and hypertrophic polyps should have a colonoscopy every 3 years. Early detection and early removal are more effective than anything else.