Recently, the number of patients with pancreatitis is growing. Doctors, nutritionists assure that in order to improve health, one should definitely adjust the diet. The question arises, what kind of diet for pancreatitis contributes to recovery? How to eat right with this disease? Are there foods that can make the condition worse? What should you eat to improve your health?
Basic nutritional rules for pancreatitis
Diet is mandatory for those who are sick with pancreatitis, otherwise no medicine will help.
Experts have developed rules that must be followed:
- if the disease is acute, then the diet should begin with fasting, it lasts from 2 to 4 days;
- you need to eat often, at the same time;
- portions should be small;
- avoid overeating;
- reduce the amount of confectionery;
- dishes should include pureed products that do not cause irritation of the mucous membrane;
- the daily norm of fat is not more than 80 g;
- reduce the amount of salt to 10 g;
- reduce sugar intake to a minimum.
Based on these rules, a daily menu is formed.
How to eat with acute pancreatitis
Acute pancreatitis is a dangerous disease, so comprehensive measures are needed to improve the condition. It must be remembered that dietary requirements are mandatory, otherwise this condition may lead to surgical intervention.
At the first stage of treatment, you should fast for several days. The duration of food refusal is from 2 to 4 days.
Only liquids are allowed. At this time, you can drink not strong tea, prepare decoctions from rose hips, mineral water is suitable without gas.
The next step is diet number 5. Food has a low calorie content, salt and fat are prohibited, which can provoke a new attack. All dishes are cooked in liquid form. You can add quite a bit.
It is best when compiling a menu to keep a list of useful and harmful products in front of the chapters.
If you do not adhere to strict nutritional rules, then the patient's condition will not improve.
How to eat with chronic pancreatitis
Nutrition in this disease should help normalize the functioning of the diseased organ. You should listen to the advice of Diet No. 5.
Diet tips for chronic pancreatitis:
- food and liquids entering the body should be warm;
- plan at least 5 meals during the day;
- avoid overeating;
- do not take long breaks between meals;
- reduce the amount of sugar;
- remove fresh bread.
All dishes that are prepared by frying are strictly prohibited.
To form a proper diet, you should know the list of products that will help you recover or worsen your health.
Table of allowed and prohibited products:
- bakery products: crackers, dried yesterday's bread, biscuits;
- porridge cooked in water with a little milk;
- meat, steamed us, in the oven, boiled chicken, turkey, lean beef;
- low-fat fish, mashed, chopped;
- first courses: non-fat, vegetable, puree soups;
- dairy products: all non-acidic, non-fat can be;
- vegetables: without coarse fiber;
- non-acid fruits;
- eggs no more than 1 per day;
- butter not more than 30 g per day;
- vegetable oil no more than 2 tablespoons;
- non-acidic juices diluted with water;
- tea is not strong, it is possible with lemon, milk;
- bakery products: fresh bread, muffins, puff pastry products;
- soups cooked in strong broth;
- fatty meats;
- dairy products with a lot of fat;
- sauces;
- spices;
- fatty fish;
- fried eggs;
- coarse fiber vegetables;
- mushrooms;
- legumes;
- carbonated drinks;
- alcohol;
- coffee;
- chocolate.
If you have questions, it is recommended to discuss the use of certain products with your doctor.
Diet for pancreatitis in children
Parents often have a question, what kind of diet for pancreatitis does a sick child need? The diet, which helps to improve the condition of the baby, differs little from the adult menu. But there are some peculiarities that need to be considered when feeding children.
Children's nutrition rules:
- give food and drink warm, feed more with chopped dishes, for example, mashed potatoes;
- the diet should contain all the components necessary for normal growth and development;
- even after the removal of an acute condition, it is imperative to adhere to dietary restrictions;
- prohibit children from drinking carbonated drinks;
- fast food dishes.
If the sick child is not even 3 years old, then it is recommended to wipe the food, grind it. Any citrus fruits, freshly squeezed juices should be removed from the diet. Children should not be given berries with small seeds, a rough shell. Fresh vegetables are not required.
A child over 3 years old attends children's educational institutions, contacts with peers. First of all, you need to take care of nutrition at school and kindergarten. To do this, talk with a medical worker, inform the teacher, educator.
The most difficult thing is to protect the child from soda, chips and other dangerous foods. When attending birthdays and children's parties, care should be taken that the child does not violate the diet. The kid needs to explain the need for him to restrict food.
Menu for 7 days for patients with chronic pancreatitis
For patients, it is recommended to draw up a menu in advance, this will allow you to eat a balanced diet, while the state of health will noticeably improve.
Menu option for the week:
1 day
- chicken meat, rosehip broth;
- oatmeal, tea;
- pumpkin puree soup, steamed fish, jelly;
- jar of baby food;
- stewed zucchini, carrots, chicken fillet from the oven, juice;
2 day
- rice porridge, tea with honey;
- pumpkin puree, compote;
- vegetable soup puree, chicken meatballs, jelly;
- tea, crackers;
- semolina pudding and jelly;
3 day
- oatmeal porridge, jelly;
- baked apple with cottage cheese, rosehip broth;
- soup puree from vegetables, steam fish, compote;
- cottage cheese, tea;
- boiled fish, tea;
Day 4
- rice porridge, cracker, rosehip broth;
- pumpkin puree, tea;
- vegetable broth, a piece of boiled fish, mashed potatoes, compote;
- tea with honey, biscuits;
- rice pudding, jelly;
Day 5
- oatmeal, tea;
- cottage cheese, baked apple, rosehip broth;
- vegetable soup, chicken meatballs, compote;
- tea, dry biscuits;
- fish baked in the oven, rosehip broth.
Day 6
- semolina, tea;
- baked apple, rosehip broth;
- vegetable broth with a piece of beef, vegetable puree, compote;
- tea, crackers;
- steamed omelet, jelly;
Day 7
- rice porridge, cracker, rosehip broth;
- cottage cheese with chopped apple, tea;
- vegetable soup puree, chicken meatballs, jelly;
- cottage cheese, tea, biscuits;
- semolina pudding, jelly.
Knowing the basic requirements for dishes, you can make your own menu.
Recipes for pancreatitis
Knowing the basic rules of the diet, you can make changes to the menu. With food restrictions, you want to please yourself with something tasty. Nutritionists have developed special dishes that can be consumed with pancreatitis.
Recipe for baked apples:
- In washed apples, remove the core, being careful not to pierce the bottom of the fruit.
- Put honey in an apple.
- Add cinnamon on top.
- Bake in the oven.
- Cool down.
Beet salad recipe:
- Boil 1 medium-sized beet, cool, chop with a grater.
- 2 apples of sweet varieties, peeled, cut into small cubes.
- Grind walnuts on a grater, you need about a tablespoon.
- Combine all components, mix, salt a little.
- Fill with olive oil.
Recipe for semolina pudding with berry jelly:
- Prepare thick semolina porridge in water, pour into deep molds, let cool.
- Pour strawberries with a small amount of water, boil, remove, chop, put back into the broth.
- Pour sugar, heat to a boil.
- Prepare starch, stir in cold water, carefully pour into strawberry broth, boil, not allowing to boil. Remove from heat, cool.
- When serving, cut the thickened semolina pudding into pieces, pour jelly on top.
If desired, any diet can be supplemented with delicious healthy dishes.
We recommend a video about 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 be consumed and which cannot. You should follow the rules of cooking, general recommendations regarding nutrition.
Types of pancreatitis
The most general classification of pancreatitis is based on the nature of the course of the disease: acute attack or prolonged chronic pancreatitis with periodic relapses. These two forms differ in the severity of symptoms and require different approaches to treatment.
Acute pancreatitis
The inflammatory process in acute pancreatitis develops very quickly and is always accompanied by severe pain. In most cases, the disease occurs on the background of alcohol abuse or after eating a large amount of fatty foods. Sometimes an exacerbation is preceded by an attack of acute hepatic colic.
Symptoms of acute pancreatitis:
- Severe pain in the left hypochondrium, radiating to other organs. The pain attack lasts about half an hour to an hour. The pain is especially strong when lying on the back. The attack is aggravated after eating, especially fried and spicy, and any alcoholic drinks.
- Vomiting, often violent, bilious and bitter. Constant nausea that does not go away after vomiting.
- Subfebrile or high temperature.
- Sometimes, due to a violation of the outflow of bile, yellowing of the eye proteins is observed, very rarely - 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. Painkillers provide only temporary relief, but do not address the cause of the inflammation. In the absence of qualified assistance, the risk of severe complications rapidly increases: infection on inflamed tissues, necrosis and abscesses.
Acute pancreatitis in a severe stage can lead to shock and multiple organ failure.
Chronic pancreatitis
If, after an attack of acute pancreatitis, a person does not follow the recommendations of doctors and continues to drink alcohol and eat unhealthy food, the disease is highly likely to become chronic. Chronic pancreatitis develops with a significant nature of damage to the pancreas during the first episode 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 insufficiency manifests itself:
- diarrhea
- bloating,
- a change in the nature of the feces - they acquire a sticky consistency due to the large amount of fat in them and are poorly washed off the walls of the toilet bowl.
Chronic pancreatitis can be asymptomatic for a long time: acute pain appears when significant pathological changes have already occurred in the pancreas. During an attack, chronic pancreatitis is manifested by the same symptoms as acute:
- severe girdle pain,
- nausea,
- vomit,
- intestinal disorders.
The diagnosis is made on the basis of ultrasound, computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging. During the study, narrowed pancreatic ducts are usually found due to the formation of stones in them - calcifications. Hardware techniques also make it possible to detect cysts at the site of atrophied tissue. Laboratory blood tests for chronic pancreatitis are not very informative.
Insufficiency of pancreatic function is determined by the analysis of feces. If they contain a specific enzyme - pancreatic elastase - a diagnosis of "chronic pancreatitis" is made.
The importance of enzymes in digestion
The functioning of the human body is provided by a complex system of interrelated and interdependent biochemical reactions. Thanks to special protein compounds - enzymes or enzymes - all these reactions are accelerated, providing a fast metabolism. The action of enzymes is very selective: each of them is able to initiate, accelerate or slow down only one reaction.
Digestion is based on the work of digestive enzymes. Their main task is to make the process of assimilation of energy fast and efficient. 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 eaten.
Digestion of food begins in the mouth. Food crushed by teeth into small pieces is mixed with saliva, which contains the enzyme alpha-amylase. The better we chew food, the easier it is for the salivary gland enzyme to convert starch molecules into soluble sugars and facilitate the process of further processing.
After the primary processing, food enters the stomach through the esophagus, where the gastric enzyme pepsin and hydrochloric acid begin to work. These substances create gastric juice, which:
- provides antibacterial protection of the body;
- stimulates the production of pancreatic hormones;
- regulates gastric motility;
- breaks down fats and performs a number of other functions.
In addition to pepsin, which is responsible for the breakdown of 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 - starts the process of digestion of milk protein.
Bile plays an important role in the process of digestion. It contains bile acids that stimulate the production of pancreatic secretions.
From the stomach, the food bolus is evacuated to the duodenum, where the main process of food digestion takes place. It is provided by more than 20 pancreatic enzymes. Enzymes are contained in pancreatic juice, which is produced by the gland in a volume of about two liters per day.
Functions of pancreatic enzymes:
- proteases - the breakdown of proteins into amino acids;
- nucleases - act on DNA nucleic acids;
- amylase - breaks down starch into simple sugars;
- lipases - break down fats into higher fatty acids and glycerol.
In violation of the function of the production of enzymes by the organs of the digestive system, especially the pancreas, the whole organism is unbalanced. This imbalance leads to nausea, diarrhea, flatulence, followed by anemia and malnutrition.
What to take with food with a deficiency of pancreatic enzymes
With pancreatitis, the process of production of digestive enzymes by the pancreas is disrupted, as a result of which a person suffers from discomfort and pain in the stomach. In this case, after a complete examination, substitution therapy can be prescribed.
The task of treatment with enzyme preparations is to compensate for their deficiency in the body, while reducing the load on the damaged organ. In some cases, such therapy is prescribed for life.
Important!The action of all enzyme preparations begins 20-30 minutes after a meal, so you need to drink them strictly before meals in the dosage prescribed by your doctor!
Modern pharmacology offers a large number of different enzyme preparations of animal and plant origin. Some of them are aimed only at filling the lack of a single enzyme, for example, breaking down lactose or fats. There are also means of complex effects, prescribed for a deficiency of several enzymes in various organs of the digestive system.
Pancreatic enzymes are obtained from the organs of cows or pigs. The composition of medicines includes the main pancreatic enzymes - amylase, lipase and trypsin. In addition to pure pancreatin, polyenzymatic preparations may include bile acids, adsorbents or other enzymes. All drugs are selected strictly individually, taking into account the nature of the course of the disease and the severity of symptoms.
What is the diet for pancreatitis?
In the process of treating pancreatitis, nutrition plays no less a role than drugs. The main goal of the prescribed diet is to restore the functions of the pancreas and normalize the production of digestive enzymes.
Foods that are difficult to process increase the load on the inflamed organ. After a plentiful feast with fatty fried foods, the pancreas begins to intensively produce enzymes for its digestion. If the ducts of the gland are narrowed, the pancreatic juice produced in extreme mode accumulates in the gland, aggravating the development of the disease - the affected pancreas begins to digest itself.
Signals that the gland is working in enhanced mode include:
- heaviness in the abdomen after eating,
- heartburn,
- belching
- bouts of pain in the stomach.
Of course, sticking to a strict diet all the time is not easy, especially at home. People with severe dietary restrictions are forced to cook separately for themselves and resist the temptation to eat anything fried or spicy.
It is important to understand that one violation of the diet can cause an acute attack of pancreatitis with all the ensuing consequences: severe pain, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. A single failure can negate all efforts to maintain a long-term remission.
Diet rules number 5: what you can and can not eat with pancreatitis
The diet for pancreatitis has many restrictions both on allowed foods and on the way they are prepared. Especially for people experiencing problems with the pancreas, one of the founders of domestic dietology and gastroenterology, Professor I. I. Pevzner developed a dietary table number 5.
But, 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 predominate in the diet;
- the amount of fat per day should not exceed 50 g;
- sugar also falls under a strict restriction - no more than 30 g per day;
- products that increase flatulence are prohibited - sweet carbonated drinks, any legumes, sweet apples and grapes, sweet muffins and some others;
- salt intake is minimized - no more than three to five grams.
Important!With pancreatitis, you can eat slow carbohydrates, while you need to monitor the ratio of nutrients in dishes. Do not 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 calculator. It is necessary to immediately calculate the calorie intake per day and the balance of proteins, fats and carbohydrates based on the body mass index. This information is easy to find on the Internet on sites dedicated to proper nutrition and a healthy lifestyle. There are various mobile applications for counting calories and nutrients.
All of these principles are taken into account in diet number 5, which exists in basic and advanced versions.
The basic option is indicated for relapses of chronic pancreatitis and for the acute nature of the disease. In the acute phase, the diet is more strict with many restrictions. It is aimed at unloading the pancreas and relieving symptoms of acute inflammation. In the first 3 days of the acute stage, fasting is recommended for the patient to rest the pancreas. Further, within 3-7 days, carbohydrate foods are allowed in small portions at short intervals. The calorie content of the diet these days should be reduced, and food is consumed only in a pureed or semi-liquid form.
Important!It is widely believed that rich broth, especially chicken broth, helps well with any digestive problems. With pancreatitis, diseases of the gallbladder and other pathologies of the gastrointestinal tract, fatty rich broths are categorically contraindicated! An excessive amount of animal fat significantly increases the load on the pancreas and prevents the normalization of the condition.
The diet includes cereals on the water and vegetable soups with various cereals, except for millet and corn, boiled or steamed pureed vegetables. From drinks, weak tea, jelly, dried fruit compote are allowed. Bread is allowed only white and slightly dried, you can eat crackers and biscuits such as biscuits.
On the third day of the carbohydrate diet, protein products are gradually introduced:
- soup from lean meat, it is desirable to cook broth from veal, turkey or chicken breast, meat from the broth should be passed through a meat grinder or chopped in a blender;
- steamed omelet or soft-boiled eggs;
- steam cutlets from lean meat or low-fat fish;
- cottage cheese casseroles and soufflé from cottage cheese with a minimum fat content.
Diet number 5 is recognized as sparing the pancreas as much as possible, which needs complete rest in the acute stage. Allowed and prohibited foods for the basic diet are shown in Table 1.
Important!The predominance of protein foods in the diet can lead to constipation. In this case, you need to add more raw vegetables and fruits from the allowed list. With gout, preference is given to proteins of plant origin or sea fish.
Can chronic pancreatitis be cured?
So far, no drug has been developed to stop and reverse the processes that occur in the pancreas during chronic inflammation. Therefore, treatment is aimed at slowing the progression of the disease and preventing exacerbations. In the later stages, when there is a significant decrease in pancreatic function, therapy is supplemented with agents to normalize digestion and blood sugar levels. To achieve remission of chronic pancreatitis, proton pump inhibitors, antispasmodics, painkillers, enzyme preparations are used, their choice is individual and depends on the clinical picture of the disease.
An important area of prevention is the timely treatment of diseases leading to the development of chronic pancreatitis.
How to eat with chronic pancreatitis?
Compliance with a therapeutic diet is an effective, scientifically proven remedy for preventing flare-ups. There are several modifications of therapeutic diets for the stage of exacerbation and remission. The diets used are based on the exclusion of products that stimulate an increase in the secretion of the stomach and pancreas. Rest for the pancreas is very important to reduce the activity of inflammation. In the acute stage, a wiped version of the diet is used, and when going into remission, a non-mashed version is used.
In chronic pancreatitis, it is important to provide the body with a sufficient amount of protein; 110-120 g of protein per day is included in the diet, which slightly exceeds the physiological norm. At the same time, 60% of this amount should be animal proteins. The menu includes dishes from lean meat, poultry, fish, cottage cheese and egg whites. But fats and simple carbohydrates, on the contrary, limit.
Nutrition in chronic pancreatitis should be regular and fractional - 5-6 times a day in small portions. More about nutrition for pancreatitis