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Do You Really Have Irritable Bowel Syndrome or Could You Suffer from Fructose Malabsorption?
Many people suffer from digestive issues and their immense psychological and physiological consequences. I myself was diagnosed with fructose malabsorption by a hydrogen breath test in June 2020 after suffering from several digestive issues as well as joint pain, fatigue, low levels of B-vitamines and a general feeling of illness, on and off for 15 years.
In short, fructose malabsorption means that you are not able to absorb fructose from your small intestine into your bloodstream. In your small intestine there are several transporters responsible for the absorption of sugars into your blood, the main transporter for fructose is the so-called GLUT 5-transporter. This transport system can be inherently or acquiredly impaired, this impairment is called fructose malabsorption. A healthy individual should be able to absorb at least 25gr of fructose an hour, but as the following study claims, up to one half of the population can absorb only 25gr of fructose or less.
What happens next is that the fructose thus gets into your colon and can cause many digestive problems like diarrhea and gas for example. But also other problems like fatigue, joint pain or anxiety and depression.
