Understanding Your Condition

Many people living with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, the two main forms of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD, a group of conditions causing long-term inflammation of the digestive tract), notice that sugary foods seem to coincide with flares or digestive discomfort. This has fuelled interest in whether sugar itself drives gut inflammation, or whether the […]

Many people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are told to “eat more fibre” without much explanation of why. For those living with long-standing ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease, this advice often sits alongside a quieter worry: that years of inflammation in the bowel can raise the risk of colorectal cancer. Understanding what happens when fibre […]

Many people living with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) describe a frustrating pattern: bloating that comes and goes, stool that swings between loose and hard, and a sense that their gut is simply unpredictable. For some, this happens alongside inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), particularly once inflammation has settled but symptoms persist. One area of growing scientific […]

Many people with Crohn’s disease have heard that butyrate, a substance made by gut bacteria, is good for the bowel. Most of this discussion, however, comes from research in ulcerative colitis (UC), which affects only the large bowel. Crohn’s disease is different: it can involve any part of the digestive tract, and this distinction matters […]

For many people with ulcerative colitis, diet feels like a daily puzzle: some foods settle things, others stir them up, and it is not always clear why. Part of the answer may lie not in the food itself, but in what happens to it after it reaches the colon, where trillions of bacteria break it […]

For many people with chronic, watery diarrhoea, a colonoscopy comes back “normal”, and that can feel more frustrating than reassuring. The bowel lining looks healthy to the naked eye, yet the symptoms persist, sometimes for months before an answer is found. This is often the experience of people with microscopic colitis, a form of bowel […]

Many people spend years being told their bloating, pelvic pain, and unpredictable bowel habits are “just IBS,” only to later discover the real driver was endometriosis, or a combination of both. This confusion is common, understandable, and often costly in terms of delayed diagnosis. Understanding how these two conditions overlap, and where they differ, can […]

Bloating after a sandwich, cramping after pasta, and a general sense that wheat “doesn’t agree” with you: these experiences are common, but they can point to very different underlying conditions. Coeliac disease, irritable bowel syndrome, and non-coeliac gluten sensitivity can look almost identical on the surface, yet they involve different biology and require different management. […]

For many people living with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, bloating, wind or loose stools after a bowl of cereal with milk can feel like just another unpredictable IBD symptom. Sometimes, though, the culprit is not inflammation at all, but lactose, the natural sugar found in milk and dairy products. Understanding the difference matters, because […]