Bottled mineral water problems for IBS-D
I suddenly found something interesting in my food diary. My food diary hasn't made much sense generally. I can't often relate what I have eaten to my symptoms of IBS-D which come and go.
But then I couldn't get my usual bottled mineral water in my grocery order and had to drink another one, one I'd had a few months ago. So I didn't think much of it but the next day my gut was a bit worse than it had been recently.
I decided to take a look at the minerals. And guess what? I discovered that the bottled waters that were much calmer for my gut were the ones with much lower bicarbonate.
They also had a lower Magnesium level. It was interesting to discover that.
I checked, and sodium bicarbonate (also called baking soda) can cause loose stools as it draws water into the intestine. That can be helpful for constipation, but the opposite for diarrhea.
Some bicarbonate levels in bottled water are in the low hundreds. I am safer sticking to the ones well below 100. So now I always will find out the levels (mg per litre) in a bottled water I buy. I believe it will help my case anyway, as for me there does seem to be a link.
Has anyone else found they are sensitive to some mineral waters?
Thanks for sharing. Love to see that your food diary is helping you unlock these patterns. Yes, bicarbonate and magnesium both can cause diarrhea. Amounts depends on the individual's threshold. Curious to hear if others have had similar experiences. Best, Kelly, Irritablebowelsyndrome.net Team Member Yes, I would also be interested to see if anyone else has had experiences with bottled water. I love the fact that the mineral waters supply electrolytes, so don't want to stop drinking them unless things got extreme. But discovering today that the high bicarbonate ones I think may be making me worse, is news to me. It goes to show that we should write down every single thing that we consume in a food diary, and not forget any water we drink.
I don't feel this would be any cure, but water is often overlooked, and we are encouraged to drink plenty of it during the day! So if there's a chance of calming symptoms a bit by choosing another water it would be a plus.
