Recently, the number of patients suffering from pancreatitis is increasing. Doctors, nutritionists assure that in order to promote health, patients should definitely adjust their diet. The question arises, what kind of diet for pancreatitis contributes to recovery? How to eat right with this disease? What foods can make the condition worse? What should you eat to promote health?
Basic nutrition rules for pancreatitis
Diet is imperative for people with pancreatitis, otherwise no medication will help.
Experts have developed rules to follow:
- if the disease is in the acute stage, start the diet with fasting, which lasts from 2 to 4 days;
- you need to eat often, at the same time;
- servings must be small;
- avoid overeating;
- reduce the amount of confectionery;
- dishes should include pureed products that do not irritate the mucous membranes;
- the daily norm of fat is not more than 80 g;
- reduce the amount of salt to 10 g;
- Reduce sugar to a minimum.
Based on these rules, a daily menu is formed.
How to eat when you have acute pancreatitis
Acute pancreatitis is a dangerous disease, so it is necessary to take comprehensive measures to improve the condition of the disease. It must be remembered that dietary requirements are mandatory, otherwise this condition can lead to surgical intervention.
At the beginning of treatment, you should fast for a few days. The time to stop eating is from 2 to 4 days.
Only liquids are allowed. At this time, you can drink tea that is not strong, make a decoction of rose hips, suitable mineral water without gas.
The next step is diet number 5. Low-calorie foods, salt and fat are prohibited, which can provoke a new attack. All dishes are cooked in liquid form. You can add a little more.
It is best when compiling a menu to keep a list of useful and harmful products at the front of the chapters.
If you do not follow strict nutrition rules, then the patient's condition will not improve.
How to eat when you have chronic pancreatitis
Nutrition in this disease will help to normalize the functioning of the diseased organ. You should heed Diet 5's advice.
Dietary tips for chronic pancreatitis:
- food and liquids entering the body must be warm;
- plan at least 5 meals a day;
- avoid overeating;
- do not take long breaks between meals;
- reduce sugar;
- Remove fresh bread.
All dishes prepared by frying are strictly prohibited.
To form a suitable diet, you should know the list of products that will help you restore or degrade your health.
List of allowed and prohibited products:
- bakery products: crackers, yesterday's dry bread, biscuits;
- porridge cooked in water with a little milk;
- meat, steamed us, in the oven, boiled chicken, turkey, lean beef;
- low-fat fish, crushed, minced;
- first courses: fat-free soup, vegetables, puree;
- dairy products: all can be non-acidic, fat-free;
- vegetables: no crude fiber;
- non-acidic fruit;
- eggs no more than 1 per day;
- butter no more than 30 g per day;
- vegetable oil no more than 2 tbsp;
- non-acidic juices diluted with water;
- tea is not strong, maybe with lemon, milk;
- bakery products: fresh bread, muffins, puff pastry products;
- soup cooked in strong broth;
- meat;
- high-fat dairy products;
- sauce;
- spice;
- fatty fish;
- omelet;
- raw vegetables;
- mushroom;
- pea's tree;
- soft drink;
- wine;
- the coffee;
- chocolate.
If you have questions, you should discuss the use of certain products with your doctor.
Diet for pancreatitis in children
Parents often have a question that children with pancreatitis need to diet? The diet that helps to improve children's health is very different from the menu of adults. But there are some peculiarities to consider when feeding your baby.
Children's nutrition rules:
- give warm food and drinks, feed more with chopped dishes, for example, mashed potatoes;
- the diet must contain all the components necessary for normal growth and development;
- even after eliminating an acute condition, it is imperative to adhere to dietary restrictions;
- banning children from drinking carbonated water;
- fast foods.
If the sick child is less than 3 years old, they should wipe the food and grind it into small pieces. Any citrus fruits, freshly squeezed juices should be eliminated from the diet. Children should not eat fruits with small seeds, rough skin. Fresh vegetables are optional.
A child over 3 years old attends educational institutions for children, interacting with peers. First of all, you need to pay attention to the nutrition in school and kindergarten. To do this, talk to medical staff, inform teachers, educators.
The most difficult thing is to protect the child from soda, chips and other dangerous foods. When attending children's birthdays and parties, care should be taken so that children do not violate the diet. Children need to explain their need to restrict food.
Menu for 7 days for patients with chronic pancreatitis
For patients, it is advisable to plan a menu in advance, this helps you eat in moderation, your health status is significantly improved.
Menu options of the week:
1 day
- chicken, rosehip broth;
- oatmeal, tea;
- pumpkin puree soup, steamed fish, jelly;
- baby food jars;
- stewed zucchini, carrots, chicken fillet from the oven, juice;
2 days
- rice porridge, tea with honey;
- pumpkin puree, brewed;
- pureed vegetable soup, chicken meatballs, jelly;
- tea, crackers;
- semolina pudding and jelly;
3 days
- oat porridge, jelly;
- baked apple with cheese, rosehip broth;
- pureed vegetable soup, steamed fish, cooked tea;
- cheese, tea;
- boiled fish, tea;
4th
- rice porridge, crackers, rosehip broth;
- pureed pumpkin, tea;
- vegetable broth, a piece of boiled fish, mashed potatoes, compote;
- tea with honey, biscuits;
- rice cakes, jelly;
Day 5
- oatmeal, tea;
- cheese, baked apple, rosehip broth;
- vegetable soup, chicken meatballs, compote;
- tea, dry biscuits;
- Grilled fish in the oven, rosehip broth.
6th
- Bang powder, tea;
- baked apple broth, rosehip;
- vegetable broth with a piece of beef, vegetable puree, compote;
- tea, crackers;
- steamed omelette, jelly;
7th
- rice porridge, crackers, rosehip broth;
- cheese with chopped apples, tea;
- pureed vegetable soup, chicken meatballs, jelly;
- cheese, tea, biscuits;
- pudding with semolina, jelly.
Knowing the basic requirements for dishes, you can create your own menu.
Recipes for pancreatitis
Knowing the basic rules of the diet, you can change the menu. With food restrictions, you want to please yourself with something delicious. Nutritionists have developed special dishes that can be consumed with pancreatitis.
Recipe for baked apples:
- Wash the apples, remove the core, being careful not to puncture the bottom.
- Add honey to apples.
- Add cinnamon on top.
- Bake in the oven.
- Cool down.
Beetroot salad recipe:
- Boil 1 medium-ripe radish, let cool, and chop finely with a blender.
- 2 sweet apples, peeled and cut into small cubes.
- Grind walnuts on a grater, you need about a tablespoon.
- Combine all ingredients, mix, salt a little.
- Fill with olive oil.
How to make tapioca pudding with berry jelly:
- Make congee porridge into water, pour into deep molds, let cool.
- Pour strawberries with a little water, boil, take out, cut into small pieces, put in a pot of broth.
- Add sugar, bring to a boil.
- Prepare the starch, put it in cold water, stir well, carefully pour into the strawberry broth, bring to a boil, do not let it boil. Remove from heat, cool.
- When serving, cut thick tapioca pudding into pieces, pour jelly on top.
If desired, any diet can be supplemented with delicious healthy dishes.
We recommend a video on allowed and prohibited foods for pancreatitis:
Pancreatitis is a common disease that requires a strict diet to treat. To do this, you need to know which foods can and cannot be consumed. You should follow the cooking rules, general recommendations regarding nutrition.
Types of pancreatitis
The most common classification of pancreatitis is based on the nature of the course of the disease: acute exacerbation or chronic pancreatitis with periodic recurrences. The two forms differ in the severity of symptoms and require different treatments.
Acute pancreatitis
The inflammatory process in acute pancreatitis develops rapidly and is always accompanied by severe pain. In most cases, the disease occurs on the basis of alcohol abuse or after eating large amounts of fatty foods. Sometimes an exacerbation is preceded by an acute attack of hepatic colic.
Symptoms of acute pancreatitis:
- Severe pain in the left hypochondrium, spreading to other organs. The pain lasts about half an hour to an hour. The pain is especially strong when lying on your back. Attacks are worse after eating, especially fried and spicy foods, and any alcoholic beverages.
- Vomiting, often intense, smoldering, and bitter. Persistent nausea that does not go away after vomiting.
- Low temperature or high temperature.
- Sometimes, due to a violation of the outflow of bile, a yellow color of the protein in the eyes is very rarely observed - a yellow tint of the skin.
- In some cases, the pain syndrome is accompanied by heartburn and bloating.
An attack of acute pancreatitis requires immediate medical attention. Pain relievers only provide temporary pain relief, not the cause of inflammation. In the absence of qualified support, the risk of serious complications increases rapidly: infection of inflamed tissues, necrosis, and abscess.
Severe acute pancreatitis can lead to shock and multi-organ failure.
Chronic pancreatitis
If after an episode of acute pancreatitis, the patient does not follow the doctor's recommendations and continues to drink alcohol and eat unhealthy food, the disease is very likely to become chronic. Chronic pancreatitis develops with a significant nature of pancreatic damage in the first stage of the disease.
The disease is characterized by gradual pathological changes in the structure of pancreatic cells. Over time, it begins to lose its main function - the production of enzymes necessary for the digestion of food. Exocrine impairment manifests itself:
- diarrhea
- flatulence,
- change the nature of stools - they have a sticky consistency due to the large amount of fat in them and are less likely to wash out of the toilet bowl.
Chronic pancreatitis can be asymptomatic for a long time: acute pain occurs when significant pathological changes have occurred in the pancreas. During an attack, chronic pancreatitis is manifested by acute-like symptoms:
- severe abdominal pain,
- nausea,
- vomiting,
- intestinal disorder.
Diagnosis is made on the basis of ultrasound, computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging. During the study, narrowed pancreatic ducts are often found due to the formation of stones in them - calcifications. Hardware techniques also help detect cysts at the site of tissue atrophy. Laboratory blood tests for chronic pancreatitis are not very informative.
Ineffective pancreatic function was determined by stool analysis. If they contain a specific enzyme - pancreatic elastase - then a diagnosis of "chronic pancreatitis" is made.
Importance of enzymes in digestion
The functioning of the human body is powered by a complex system of interrelated and interdependent biochemical reactions. Thanks to special protein compounds - enzymes or enzymes - all these reactions are accelerated, which brings about a rapid metabolism. The action of enzymes is very selective: each enzyme can only start, speed up or slow down a reaction.
Digestion is based on the work of digestive enzymes. Their main task is to make the assimilation of energy take place quickly and efficiently. Enzymes break down food components (proteins, fats and carbohydrates) into absorbable substances. At the same time, the amount of enzymes produced depends on the quantity and quality of the food ingested.
Food digestion begins in the mouth. Food is crushed by the teeth into small pieces that are mixed with saliva, which contains the enzyme alpha-amylase. The better we chew food, the easier it is for salivary gland enzymes to convert starch molecules into soluble sugars and facilitate further processing.
After the initial processing, food enters the stomach through the esophagus, where the enzymes pepsin and hydrochloric acid in the stomach begin to work. These substances produce gastric juice, which:
- provides antibacterial protection to the body;
- stimulates the production of pancreatic hormones;
- regulate gastric motility;
- break down fat and perform several other functions.
In addition to pepsin, which is responsible for breaking down large protein molecules, other enzymes are also produced in the stomach, for example:
- gelatinase - a solvent for collagen, gelatin and other connective tissue proteins;
- lipase - an enzyme that breaks down certain fat molecules into fatty acids and monoglycerides;
- chymosin - initiates the digestion of milk proteins.
Bile plays an important role in the digestive process. It contains bile acids that stimulate the production of secretions by the pancreas.
From the stomach, food is moved to the duodenum, where the main process of food digestion takes place. It is provided by more than 20 types of pancreatic enzymes. Enzymes are present in pancreatic juice, which is produced by the gland in a volume of about two liters per day.
Functions of pancreatic enzymes:
- protease - the breakdown of proteins into amino acids;
- nucleases - act on DNA nucleic acids;
- amylase - breaks down starch into simple sugars;
- lipase - breaks down fats into higher fatty acids and glycerol.
Violation of the enzyme production function of the organs of the digestive system, especially the pancreas, the whole organ is out of balance. This imbalance leads to nausea, diarrhea, bloating, followed by anemia and malnutrition.
What to eat with foods with pancreatic enzyme deficiency?
With pancreatitis, the pancreas' production of digestive enzymes is disrupted, resulting in discomfort and stomach pain. In this case, after a complete examination, alternative therapy may be indicated.
The task of treatment with enzyme preparations is to make up for their deficiency in the body, and at the same time reduce the load on the damaged organ. In some cases, such therapy is prescribed for life.
Importance!The action of all enzyme preparations begins 20-30 minutes after a meal, so you need to take them before a meal in a dose prescribed by your doctor!
Modern pharmacology offers a large number of different enzyme preparations of animal and vegetable origin. Some of them are only meant to fill a deficiency of a single enzyme, such as breaking down lactose or fat. There are also complex means of action, which are prescribed for the deficiency of certain enzymes in various organs of the digestive system.
Pancreatic enzymes are obtained from bovine or porcine organs. The composition of the drug includes the main enzymes of the pancreas - amylase, lipase and trypsin. In addition to pure pancreatin, polyenzyme preparations may include bile acids, adsorbents or other enzymes. All drugs are strictly selected individually, taking into account the nature of the disease process and the severity of symptoms.
What is the diet for pancreatitis?
In the treatment of pancreatitis, nutrition plays a role no less than medicine. The main goal of the prescribed diet is to restore the functions of the pancreas and normalize the production of digestive enzymes.
Food that is difficult to process increases the load on the inflamed organ. After a hearty feast of greasy fried foods, the pancreas begins to intensively produce enzymes for digestion. If the ducts of the gland are narrowed, the pancreatic juice produced in an extreme mode will accumulate in the gland, exacerbating the development of the disease - the affected pancreas begins to digest itself.
Signs that your gland is overactive include:
- heaviness in the abdomen after eating,
- heartburn,
- Belching
- intermittent abdominal pain.
Of course, following a strict diet all the time is not easy, especially at home. People with severe dietary restrictions are forced to cook for themselves and resist the temptation to eat anything fried or spicy.
It is important to understand that a single violation of the diet can cause an episode of acute pancreatitis with all the subsequent consequences: severe pain, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. A single failure can negate any attempt to maintain long-term remission.
Diet Rule #5: What You Can and Can't Eat When You Have Pancreatitis
The pancreatitis diet has many restrictions both on the foods that are allowed and how they are prepared. Especially for those who have problems with the pancreas, one of the founders of the domestic diet and digestion, Professor I. I. Pevzner has developed a table of diets number 5.
However, before getting acquainted with the specific provisions of this diet, it is necessary to take into account the general principles of nutrition for pancreatitis:
- you need to eat 5 times a day in small portions;
- exclude fried and pickled foods;
- in the acute stage of the disease, food must be crushed or wiped;
- animal protein should prevail in the diet;
- the amount of fat per day is not more than 50 g;
- sugar is also strictly limited - no more than 30 g per day;
- products that increase flatulence are prohibited - sweet carbonated drinks, any beans, sweet apples and grapes, sweet muffins and some others;
- the amount of salt is minimized - no more than 3-5 grams.
Importance!With pancreatitis, you can eat carbohydrates slowly, and at the same time need to monitor the ratio of nutrients in the dishes. Don't be fooled by the fact that sugar can be replaced with honey, its consumption should also be controlled. At first, you will definitely need a computer. It is necessary to immediately calculate the daily calorie intake and the balance of protein, fat and carbohydrates based on the body mass index. This information can be easily found on the Internet on websites dedicated to proper nutrition and healthy living. There are various mobile apps for counting calories and nutrients.
All these principles are taken into account in the #5 diet, which exists in basic and advanced versions.
The primary option is indicated for recurrent episodes of chronic pancreatitis and the acute nature of the disease. In the acute phase, the diet is more rigorous with many restrictions. It is aimed at unloading the pancreas and relieving the symptoms of acute inflammation. During the first 3 days of the acute phase, fasting should be done to allow the patient to rest for the pancreas. Furthermore, within 3-7 days, carbohydrate-containing foods are allowed to be broken down into small portions for a short period of time. It is advisable to reduce the amount of calories in the diet these days and only consume foods in pureed or semi-liquid form.
Importance!It is believed that rich broth, especially chicken broth, helps with any digestive problems. With pancreatitis, gallbladder disease and other pathologies of the gastrointestinal tract, high-fat broth is contraindicated! Too much animal fat will significantly increase the load on the pancreas and prevent the normalization of the disease.
The diet consisted of cereals on water and vegetable soups with different grains, except millet and corn, pureed boiled or steamed vegetables. From drinks, weak tea, jelly, dried fruit are all allowed. Bread is only allowed to be white and slightly dry, you can eat crackers and cookies like cookies.
On the third day of the carbohydrate diet, protein products are gradually introduced:
- soups from lean meat, want to cook broth from veal, turkey or chicken breast, meat from broth should be passed through a meat grinder or chopped in a blender;
- steamed omelette or soft-boiled egg;
- steamed cutlets from lean meat or low-fat fish;
- Cheese casseroles and cheese soups have a minimal fat content.
Diet number 5 is recognized as the most sparing of the pancreas, which needs complete rest during the acute phase. Allowed and prohibited foods for the basic diet are shown in Table 1.
Importance!The predominance of protein-rich foods in the diet can lead to constipation. In this case, you need to add more raw vegetables and fruits to the allowed list. With gout, people give preference to protein of plant origin or sea fish.
Is chronic pancreatitis curable?
To date, no drugs have been developed to block and reverse the processes occurring in the pancreas during chronic inflammation. Therefore, treatment is aimed at slowing disease progression and preventing exacerbations. In the later stages, when there is a significant decline in pancreatic function, therapy is supplemented with substances to normalize digestion and blood sugar levels. To achieve remission of chronic pancreatitis, proton pump inhibitors, antispasmodics, analgesics, enzyme preparations are used, their choice is individual and depends on the clinical pictureof disease.
An important area of prevention is the timely treatment of diseases that lead to the development of chronic pancreatitis.
How to eat when you have chronic pancreatitis?
Adhering to a therapeutic diet is an effective, scientifically proven method for preventing flare-ups. There are several variations of the treatment regimen for exacerbation and remission. The diets used are based on the exclusion of products that stimulate increased secretion of gastric and pancreatic secretions. Resting the pancreas is important to reduce inflammation. During the acute phase, a cleansed version of the diet is used, and when moving into remission, a non-crushed version is used.
In chronic pancreatitis, it is important to provide the body with an adequate amount of protein; 110-120 g of protein per day is included in the diet, slightly above physiological levels. At the same time, 60% of this amount should be animal protein. The menu includes items from lean meats, poultry, fish, cheeses and egg whites. On the contrary, fats and simple carbohydrates should be limited.
Nutrition in chronic pancreatitis should be regular and divided - 5-6 times a day in small portions. Learn more about nutrition for pancreatitis