The elemental diet

As the name suggests an elemental diet (ED) is a “basic” medical food that contains all the daily recommended allowances for essential fatty acids, vitamins, minerals and other nutrients required by the body for proper physiological functioning.

An ED can also be described as similar to a meal replacement for the day, however there is one major distinguishing characteristic: it has no whole proteins, instead featuring pure, free-form amino acids. This allows the ED to be absorbed into the bloodstream within the first two feet, or proximal part, of the small intestine; an almost immediate assimilation.

This immediate absorption is possible because the ED consists of individual, essential, dietary compounds in their simplest forms, rendering the bulk of digestion unnecessary. The outcome is that it prevents food particles from reacting with the majority of the gastrointestinal tract, thus reducing many of the symptoms associated with various gastrointestinal conditions.

However, this is not the only advantage to utilising the ED. There are many other key effects that result from an easy absorption of, and lowered reactivity to food.

Elemental diets (EDs) have been around for over 50 years, yet few recognise what they are and their importance in clinical practice. A review of the scientific literature reveals robust data validating the use of elemental diets for the dietary management of patients with limited or impaired capacity to digest, absorb and/or metabolise foods.

The conditions referenced in the literature on elemental diets were initially confined to inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), Crohn’s disease (CD)and inflammatory ulcerative colitis (UC).

However evidence is now suggesting that elemental diets can also help with small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and other conditions that manifest outside the gastrointestinal system.

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