DEAR DR. GOTT:
I read your column regularly and have seen articles about irritable bowel syndrome. I would like to share my experience with this annoying condition.

I had suffered for a while with gas, bloating and other symptoms. My internist thought that I was lactose intolerant despite my claims that many milk products did not cause my symptoms. He ordered a colonoscopy which showed I had irritable bowel syndrome.

Shortly after the diagnosis I was reading an article in Prevention magazine that claimed there was an epidemic of IBS and that an additive found in many dairy products might be the cause. The additive is a seaweed product called carrageen.

Interested by this, I decided to check my refrigerator and found that the additive was in many products I had on hand including soy milk, ice cream, sherbet and more. [Read more...]