As the foods people react to differ, a uniform list is often of no help.

So we recommend a food diary. If you write down for about two weeks what you ate and what symptoms came how many hours later, your own trigger foods become visible.

There are common trigger foods: dairy, wheat, legumes, onion and garlic, some fruits such as apple and pear, artificial sweeteners (xylitol, sorbitol), caffeine, alcohol and fatty food. These contain many components that ferment in the intestine and produce gas.

The low-FODMAP diet is known, but as the restrictions are many, doing it alone for a long time can bring nutritional imbalance. Using it briefly as a stage for finding trigger foods and then widening again is the safe way.

Regular meal times and sufficient fluid intake are the basics.