--- title: "Half of Women With Chronic Gut Symptoms Are Struggling With Food in a Way Nobody Is Talking About" entity: "blog" canonical_url: "https://www.drlovink.com/blog/half-of-women-with-chronic-gut-symptoms-are-struggling-with-food-in-a-way-nobody-is-talking-about" markdown_url: "https://www.drlovink.com/llms/blog/half-of-women-with-chronic-gut-symptoms-are-struggling-with-food-in-a-way-nobody-is-talking-about" lastmod: "2026-03-28T20:03:12.000Z" --- When a patient with chronic gut symptoms comes in asking for food sensitivity testing, I recognize the story before she's finished telling it. Years of symptoms. Foods quietly removed, one by one. A gut that feels unpredictable and a relationship with eating that has, somewhere along the way, gotten complicated. Sometimes it looks like being careful, eating clean, doing the right things. Other times there's a history of disordered eating that she's carried for years. But the pattern is almost always the same, and the test she's asking for won't get her where she needs to go. IgG food sensitivity testing isn't something I recommend for chronic gut symptoms The evidence just isn't there. What these tests measure, IgG antibodies, often just reflects how frequently you eat a food, not whether it's causing your symptoms. And for someone already carrying the weight of a complicated relationship with food, a list of "positive" results tends to make things worse. Leading to more restriction, more fear, more foods to avoid. And that's what I want to talk about today...this conversation points to something much bigger that most gut care is still largely missing. The numbers are hard to ignore A study published earlier this year in Gastroenterology assessed over 4,000 adults for Disorders of Gut-Brain Interaction (DGBIs, the umbrella that includes IBS, functional constipation, and related conditions) alongside avoidant and restrictive eating patterns. A what they found was significant... 1 in 3 adults with a Disorder of Gut-Brain Interaction screened positive for avoidant or restrictive patterns around food. For those with IBS specifically, that number was closer to 1 in 2. And as the number of gut regions affected increased, so did the prevalence, reaching over 60% in those with the most widespread symptoms. Women with both gut symptoms and restrictive eating patterns also had significantly higher rates of anxiety and depression, lower quality of life, more difficulty participating in social activities, and higher healthcare use than those with gut symptoms alone. The study's conclusion was direct: routine screening for how patients relate to food should be standard in gut care. But in my experience, it rarely happens. Why this intersection exists If you've been living with chronic gut symptoms for any length of time, this probably isn't hard to understand. When eating consistently leads to bloating, pain, or unpredictable bowel movements, your body learns to be cautious. Foods get quietly removed. Meals become something to manage rather than enjoy. Over time, the list of safe foods shrinks and the mental load around eating grows. This isn't a character flaw. It's adaptation. Your brain & nervous system doing exactly what it's designed to do, protect you from discomfort. But here's the part that matters: that adaptation can become part of what's driving your symptoms. How restriction worsens gut symptoms There are several mechanisms at play, and they're worth understanding... - Motility slows. Adequate food volume is one of the key signals that drives bowel movement. When your caloric intake drops, whether through deliberate restriction or simply not feeling hungry, transit slows. If you're already dealing with constipation or sluggish motility, this creates a cycle that's hard to break. - Your microbiome suffers. Dietary diversity is one of the most important drivers of a healthy gut microbiome. Long-term elimination of whole food groups reduces that diversity, which in turn affects motility, gut-brain signaling, and how severe your symptoms feel day to day. - Your nervous system stays activated . Fear and anxiety around food keep your nervous system in a low-grade state of alert. And a nervous system that isn't in rest-and-digest mode is a gut that won't function well. Stress and hypervigilance around eating directly suppress the motility signals your gut relies on. - The gastrocolic reflex weakens. This is your body's built-in signal, triggered by eating, that tells your colon it's time to move. When meals are skipped, delayed, or eaten in a state of anxiety, this reflex doesn't fire properly. Over time it becomes quieter and harder to re-engage. - Visceral hypersensitivity increases. When your gut is chronically backed up or reactive, normal sensations feel amplified. This can make food reactions feel more severe than they actually are, reinforcing the belief that food is the problem and deepening the restriction further. These mechanisms don't operate in isolation. They compound each other. And none of them get better with another elimination diet. Why this keeps getting missed Part of it is that food feels like the obvious lever. Symptoms show up around mealtimes. Certain foods seem to correlate with flares. It makes intuitive sense to start there. But the bigger issue is that almost everything in the wellness space confirms it. Clean eating. Elimination diets. Food sensitivity testing. Gut healing protocols. The message is consistent and loud: find the bad food, remove it, heal your gut. And it's not just coming from wellness influencers... Even in naturopathic training, a model that prides itself on treating the whole person, food elimination is often the default recommendation for gut symptoms. It gets handed out broadly, without always considering the food journey you may have already been on. I know because I lived it. I followed protocol after protocol. Restricted carefully. Ate clean. Genuinely believed that if I could get precise enough, my gut would finally settle. What I didn't see at the time was that the restriction was part of the problem. And this is the piece that keeps getting missed. Not because the question of food is irrelevant, but because it's being asked in the wrong way. Here's what often doesn't get explained: there are many reasons symptoms flare at mealtimes that have nothing to do with what you're eating. - Visceral hypersensitivity means your gut nerves are amplifying normal sensations into pain or discomfort. - Backup and bloat from sluggish motility creates pressure that gets worse when you add food on top. - A nervous system running on high alert suppresses the very signals your gut needs to move properly. - Poor meal hygiene, eating rushed, distracted, or in a state of stress, interrupts the reflexes that drive healthy digestion. None of those are fixed by removing a food. They require entirely different tools. What needs to change Before reaching for elimination, we need to start asking different questions. Not just what you're eating, but how eating feels. Whether food has become something to fear rather than enjoy. Whether the mental load around meals has quietly taken over. There are validated screening tools that can help open that conversation. Questions like: - Are you satisfied with your eating patterns? - Does your weight affect the way you feel about yourself? - Would you say that food dominates your life? Simple questions. But ones that rarely get asked in a gut health appointment. And if the answers point to a complicated food journey, more restriction is rarely the answer. What you actually need is someone willing to look at that journey honestly. To work gently with the hypervigilance that's built up. To support your nervous system in coming out of the low-grade threat response that food has become. To rebuild nutritional sufficiency and predictable structure, so your body finally has enough safety and input to move the way it's supposed to. And that's the conversation I've built my practice around. Because so much of this lives quietly in the background. In the foods that have gradually disappeared from your plate. In the mental energy spent navigating every meal. In the shame that doesn't get named because it doesn't look like an eating disorder, it just looks like someone who's really careful about what she eats. I see it. And I know how long you may have been carrying it. Your gut deserves support that goes beyond the food. And so does your relationship with eating. If you're in BC and ready for care that looks at the whole picture, I'd love to work with you. [Book a Gut Clarity Call here to get started.](https://betahealth.janeapp.com/#/staff_member/91) Other Resources: Y ou don't need a formal diagnosis to deserve support. If any of this resonated, if food feels complicated, stressful, or like it takes up more space than it should, please know that help is available. NEDIC (National Eating Disorder Information Centre) Canada's only national toll-free helpline and live chat for anyone affected by disordered eating or eating disorders. Helpline: 1-866-NEDIC-20 Live chat: [www.nedic.ca](http://www.nedic.ca) Monday to Thursday 9am–9pm EST, Friday 9am–5pm EST NIED (National Initiative for Eating Disorders) Resources, education, and support for individuals and caregivers across Canada. [www.nied.ca](http://www.nied.ca) References: Flack R, Brownlow G, Burton-Murray H, Palsson O, Aziz I. The prevalence and burden of avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder symptoms in adults with disorders of gut-brain interaction: a population-based study. Gastroenterology. 2026;170:365–374. [https://doi.org/10.1053/j.gastro.2025.07.043](https://doi.org/10.1053/j.gastro.2025.07.043) Cotton MA, Ball C, Robinson P. Four simple questions can help screen for eating disorders (Eating Disorder Screen for Primary Care, ESP). Journal of General Internal Medicine. 2003;18(1):53–56. [https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1525-1497.2003.20374.x](https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1525-1497.2003.20374.x) Morgan JF, Reid F, Lacey JH. The SCOFF questionnaire: assessment of a new screening tool for eating disorders. BMJ. 1999;319:1467–1468. [https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.319.7223.1467](https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.319.7223.1467)