Dietary management of chronic constipation, with Dr. Eirini Dimidi PhD RD

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This episode features Dr. Eirini Dimidi PhD RD from King’s College London (UK), speaking about the recently published British Dietetic Association’s guidelines for dietary management of chronic constipation. Constipation can be a major concern for patients, but evidence around some of the most common dietary recommendations for addressing it has remained unclear. After a thorough review of evidence from randomized, controlled trials, Dr. Dimidi and colleagues found evidence for specific foods / beverages improving certain symptoms of constipation. In addition, some supplements such as psyllium, certain probiotics, and magnesium oxide have evidence for efficacy. A high-fiber diet is a commonly recommended dietary strategy for chronic constipation, but the guideline shows that the evidence to date is insufficient to support this recommendation. (However, a high fiber diet has many other benefits.) Probably the effective foods’ key mechanism of action in relieving symptoms of constipation is the fiber they contain, but future studies need to confirm this. Regarding probiotics, so far the evidence is ambiguous around which strains and which durations of treatment are the most effective so the authors were unable to make a confident conclusion. However, for practical reasons they included the expert opinion that patients should be advised to take a probiotic of their choice for at least 4 weeks in addressing chronic constipation.

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About Dr. Eirini Dimidi PhD RD:

Dr Eirini Dimidi is an Associate Professor in Nutritional Sciences at King’s College London. She is a registered dietitian and nutritionist since 2011, after completing a BSc in Nutrition and Dietetics and a MSc in Clinical and Public Health Nutrition. This was followed by the completion of a PhD from King’s College London where she investigated the effectiveness of probiotics in people with chronic constipation.

She is leading research on nutrition-based interventions, including fibre, prebiotics, probiotics, plant foods, and plant-based diets in gut function and dysfunction. She is also investigating the mechanisms through which nutritional interventions may affect immune and mental health via the gut microbiome. Dr Dimidi led the development of the first ever UK national dietary guidelines for the management of chronic constipation, which have been endorsed by the British Dietetic Association.

Dr Dimidi was awarded the 2023 Cuthbertson Medal by the Nutrition Society, and the 2022 ISAPP Glenn Gibson Early Career Research Prize for her research on the effect of diet in gut health. She also received the 2021 Rising Star and 2020 Elizabeth Washington awards by the British Dietetic Association.

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