I have a malabsorption problem, what can I do to fix it?

[xxndnromeoxx]

I posted this on another board as I need serious help and am not sure what to do or where to start off, so I hope you can help.

Here's my issue,

I have a good reason to believe that I have a malabsorption issue (I am not absorbing my nutrients and intake). One of the reasons is that I recently got a blood test and my triglyceride level is 36. Normal is around 100.

HDL = 52
LDL = 86
VLDL = 7
Total Cholesterol = 145
Triglycerides = 36

My dad and mom have a range of 100 as well, but mine is really low. I started reading up and they noted how a tri level that low may mean I have malabsorption issues.

Also, further notice would be that I am severely underweight. So besides my tri levels, here is the problem that indicates this: I'm 6'1 but only weigh 125 pounds (16.5 BMI). I am severely underweight. But not because I eat little.

As far as my eating habits go, I eat a LOT and ensure I get everything. 2,000 to 3,000 calories, with lots of protein, carbs, and essential fats, vegetables and fruit. I meet all my requirements and then some, I've tried it all. I've even tried eating in excess of 4,000 calories, with 1.5 grams of protein per lb of body weight. I've tried ensuring I get all my essential fats, vitamins, minerals, and all that.

I've even tried just eating all this in 3 big meals to slow down my metabolism but I don't believe I have a fast metabolism at all, as I don't usually require much to stay very full!

One thing I also read is that malabsorption comes from enzyme deficiencies.

What can I do to regulate my digestive system so that I don't have malabsorption issues? I don't know anyone as rail thin as I am, and eat twice as much as people twice my size. Plus my triglycerides support my theory on malabsorption through either enzyme deficiency or something else.

I was hoping someone could guide me. Serious responses only, and any advice will be taken and not over looked.

Thank you.

 

[Evo]

You need to go to a doctor.

Didn't a doctor administer the blood test? What did they say about the results?

 

[xxndnromeoxx]

You need to go to a doctor.

Didn't a doctor administer the blood test? What did they say about the results?

They said everything looked pretty good, and that I had a good overall cholesterol. I told my parents and they simply keep saying, "it's your age, it's metabolism, you are in great health, just look at your BP and chol, it's awesome, what are you worried about?" but I have a huge suspicion it's far worse than that.

How can I convince them that it's serious.

Also, which particular type of doctor can I go to, I know there are some dealing with just food intake like naturopath's and dietitians, etc.

 

[JasonRox]

Low Triglyceride Levels Affect Calculation of Low-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol Values

http://arpa.allenpress.com/arpaonli....1043/0003-9985(2001)125<0404:LTLACO>2.0.CO;2

Technically, you don't know if your cholestrol is good.

Because carbohydrates can raise triglyceride levels, a low-carbohydrate might be good for obese individuals with abnormally high triglyceride levels.

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/lcd.html

Sure you eat a lot of food, but how is your diet? If you depend on vitamin supplements for vitamins, I personally think that's a bad sign. Anyways, do you eat lots of carbohydrates? Do you lots of fruits and vegetables?

 

[light_bulb]

tapeworm

 

[JasonRox]

tapeworm

That was my first thought too.

 

[xxndnromeoxx]

http://arpa.allenpress.com/arpaonli....1043/0003-9985(2001)125<0404:LTLACO>2.0.CO;2

Technically, you don't know if your cholestrol is good.
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/lcd.html

Sure you eat a lot of food, but how is your diet? If you depend on vitamin supplements for vitamins, I personally think that's a bad sign. Anyways, do you eat lots of carbohydrates? Do you lots of fruits and vegetables?

Most of my daily intake comes from carbs, but not processed. Either from oatmeal, wheaties, whole wheat bread, multi grain pasta, brown rice. I eat almost no processed foods.

As for fruits and veggies: apples, bananas, lentils, legumes, and greens are my main daily essentials.

For protein: it's generally eggs, whey, and milk.

Essential fats from from omega 3's

Hopefully that helps.

In terms of family health, we generally have a problem with high triglycerides, and high BP problems, with heart attacks etc. Even body weight, are heavy set. So it seems to be the opposite for me.

 

[Moonbear]

If you're underweight and eating 4000 calories a day, unless you're doing extreme amounts of exercise, you should go back to your doctor ASAP. Malabsorption problems could be one problem, so could a hyperactive thyroid. In either case, these are not things you can just take care of yourself; you will need medical treatment to assist you.

 

[moe darklight]

Are you Canadian by any chance?

I ask because (I don't know if it's like this in the rest of the world), as much as free health care is great for non-serious illnesses, diagnosis is HORRID here.

I find it that here, unless you go to the doctor already knowing what you have, telling them what specific tests you want done, you're screwed if you have anything outside the norm.

Dr's look at you for five minutes, tell you to take antibiotics, and until you're in the emergency room they don't even bother to wonder if it's anything outside a common cold or infection.

I remember in Israel Dr's would check you up for a pretty long time if anything was "weird." My mom had a health problems and Dr's kept sending her back home, only after long hours of doing her own research did she go to the Drs, literally spelling it out for them "this is what I think I have, these are the tests you have to give to me"... it turns out she was right.I also say check for tapeworms, that sounds possible.

 

[Moonbear]

I think the important thing is to go back to your primary care provider, and let them know how much you're eating, how much you exercise (if you do) and that you're still as thin as you are. This is the information that will show them that there is a serious concern so you can get a more thorough evaluation. Even a "malabsorption" problem is a non-specific term, and a number of actual problems can be the cause (anything from the suggested tapeworms or other parasites, to enzyme deficiencies, to inflammation of the digestive system, etc.) None of this is anything you can self-diagnose or self-treat.

 

[light_bulb]

the tapeworm thing was meant as a joke

 

[moe darklight]

lol it does happen though! ... not a lot in north america maybe

 

[chemisttree]

I would think that a high calorie diet coupled with malabsorption (and/or parasites) would manifest some severe gastrointestinal distress. (gas, bloating, greasy stool, diarrhea, etc...) If you are having these problems, you need to share them with your doctor. If you aren't, you probably have a high metabolism. Lucky! The cure involves waiting for about ten years.


Gather ye rosebuds while ye may... you'll be 40 someday!

 

[adrenaline]

Ask Your Docotor For Screening Test For Celiac Disease, Called Tissuetransglutaminase Antibody, About 1 In 250 People Have This And Can Cause Some Of Your Symptoms, IF YOU HAVE IT IT IS JUST A MATTER OF AVOIDING GLUTEN.

 

[Mk]

If you're underweight and eating 4000 calories a day, unless you're doing extreme amounts of exercise, you should go back to your doctor ASAP. Malabsorption problems could be one problem, so could a hyperactive thyroid. In either case, these are not things you can just take care of yourself; you will need medical treatment to assist you.

Really? Maybe I should count my calories and get a blood test too; 4000 Cal/day, no exercise, and underweight sounds like me.

 

[Moonbear]

Really? Maybe I should count my calories and get a blood test too; 4000 Cal/day, no exercise, and underweight sounds like me.

The average person requires about 2000-2500 calories a day to maintain a healthy body weight, assuming they get moderate exercise. This range may not be all-inclusive, for example, a very petite woman may need fewer calories. If you get little to no exercise, you should have lower caloric requirements to maintain weight. If you're doing a lot of exercise (not necessarily just exercise for the sake of exercise, but it could also be exercise in the form of work for a physically demanding job), then your caloric requirements will increase. For example, 3000-4000 calories/day might not be at all unreasonable for someone who bikes to work every day, hits the gym to work out in the afternoon, and then heads to the basketball or raquetball court for a couple games after work. But, if you're mostly sedentary, drive everywhere, sit at a desk all day then sit in front of a computer or TV all night, and are losing weight while eating more than 2000 calories a day, it would be worth a check (you may even find that you feel so sedentary because for some reason your body isn't adequately using the food to provide energy to do things).

So, basically, if you're eating a little over or a little under that 2000-2500 calorie/day recommendation, and maintaining a healthy weight, there's little reason for concern. But, if you are eating well under that calorie range and still gaining weight, or well over that calorie range and still losing weight, and there's no obvious explanation such as you started out morbidly obese and a high calorie intake is still a reduction for you, or you are getting more than the average amount of exercise, then these are things that are always worth mentioning to your physician. Other things that will help them decide where to start looking for a diagnosis would be if you have frequent diarrhea/loose stools, or frequent constipation, any abdominal discomfort or pain, any signs of blood in the stools, any nausea or vomiting, any sore throats or difficulty swallowing or a cough not associated with any recent illness or postnasal drip, if you've visited places known to have high rates of parasitic diseases (i.e., a vacation to tour a rainforest), contact with other animals that may have parasitic diseases, etc. The presence of any combination of these symptoms, or absence of them, will provide starting places for a physician to choose tests likely to identify the problem.

There may be other things they'd want to ask too, but those are the ones that come to mind off the top of my head. Adrenaline would be better able than me to provide a more comprehensive list of symptoms used to make a differential diagnosis, or at least to narrow down the suspected problem to identify the most appropriate tests to order.

 

[Mk]

Nope! Nothing else wrong or strange except for frequent or chronic ear infections that no body seems to do how to do anything about. I've spent a while in Thailand and think I might have gotten some harmless intestinal little worms.

 

[Evo]

Nope! Nothing else wrong or strange except for frequent or chronic ear infections that no body seems to do how to do anything about. I've spent a while in Thailand and think I might have gotten some harmless intestinal little worms.

Most sites on nutrtion say teenage boys need at least 2,800 calories per day. This is for "normal" boys. If you have a fast metabolism, are in a growth spurt, or are very active, you can need much more. I've heard many teeenage boys on here claiming to eat around 4,000 calories a day.

I spoke to some of the guys I work with and they eat 3,000 to 4,000 calories a day.

It never hurts to see a doctor and make sure that you don't have a problem. For me, I have a very slow metabolism and anything over 900 calories a day means weight gain. Due to the small amount of calories I need I have been hospitalized for malnourishment. I have to take supplements. My doctor told me I could eat nothing but lettuce and still gain weight. Lovely.

 

[Monique]

4000 calories a day? What do you need to eat to reach that!

 

[Evo]

4000 calories a day? What do you need to eat to reach that!

Not much actually.

I tallied up what my youngest daughter ate the other day

Breakfast at Hardees
Breakfast burrito 780 calories
medium hashbrowns 350 calories
small coke 260 calories

Lunch
6 dollar burger 1060 calories
medium french fries 520 calories
chocolate shake 700 calories

Dinner Panera Bread
smoked turkey breast sandwich 590 calories
potato soup 230 calories
orange scone 430 calories
small coke 260 calories

That's 5,180 calories and I'm sure she had other drinks during the day.

 

[Moonbear]

Not much actually.

I tallied up what my youngest daughter ate the other day

Breakfast at Hardees
Breakfast burrito 780 calories
medium hashbrowns 350 calories
small coke 260 calories

Lunch
6 dollar burger 1060 calories
medium french fries 520 calories
chocolate shake 700 calories

Dinner Panera Bread
smoked turkey breast sandwich 590 calories
potato soup 230 calories
orange scone 430 calories
small coke 260 calories

That's 5,180 calories and I'm sure she had other drinks during the day.

That's a TON of food! That breakfast alone would have made me sick enough to not need to eat the rest of the day. A Coke for breakfast?

Is she training for a Marathon? If that's her usual eating habits, and she's not an exercise freak (I usually suspect anyone who drinks Coke for breakfast isn't really enough of a health nut to do massive amounts of exercise either), she will be gaining a lot of weight very quickly. Does she actually finish all that, or just buys it but eats only half?

Swap Coke for water and leave out the orange scone, and that's a reasonable dinner, but her lunch and breakfast are very unhealthy. A burger that's half the caloric intake she should be eating? I have no problem with the occassional splurge, but maybe she's still hungry after all that because despite the massive calories, she's still deficient in nutrients and her body is telling her she needs to eat more to get them? Those sorts of foods are high in fat calories, but are not a balanced diet to get all the vitamins and minerals one needs in a day to stay healthy.

 

[Evo]

Yep, she drinks coke for breakfast. She's a teenager and that's pretty normal consumption for a teen. I ate with her older sister the other night. We had the angus burger with waffle fries and spawn insisted I have a chocolate shake. I drank part of the shake and felt like vomiting, I kept the burger for the next day and fed the dog the fries when I got home. Spawn ate all of hers and she's 5'6" and wears a size zero, she's a waif but she can pack down the food.

 

[Huckleberry]

10 years ago I would eat 4 big meals a day. I'm sure I was getting 5-6k calories a day. I was working out at that time though, running about 15 - 20 miles and about 3 hours in the gym every week.

I still eat like that sometimes, but not every day. Just yesterday I had a pizza and soda for over 2k calories in one sitting. Today it was a tuna fish sandwich with cheese and a bowl of tomato soup and a glass of milk for about 900 calories. I don't regularly track calories, but I'd estimate I eat almost 4k (with all the soda I drink) a day and I'm probably a bit underweight.

 

[Monique]

I can't imagine eating like that, it also seems very unhealthy to me. I hardly ever meet my daily requirement of calories, while I eat very normal portions (European portions that is). Eating more than that is really is hard, but not for everyone apparently.

 

[Moonbear]

I can't imagine eating like that, it also seems very unhealthy to me. I hardly ever meet my daily requirement of calories, while I eat very normal portions (European portions that is). Eating more than that is really is hard, but not for everyone apparently.

The calorie requirements that USDA advertises (that 2000-2500 range) is based on the adult male population, as far as I know. For a while, I was just curious how many calories I was eating just to see where my eating habits put me relative to that calorie range (because the number of servings they recommend eating in a day sounded insanely large to me), and counting every calorie, I would get up to around 1700 calories. And I thought I was eating a lot of food to get there. As it is, this morning I had a small muffin (not one from a bakery, but made from a mix) with my coffee for breakfast, and even though I've just been out to the farm and should've burned some extra calories, I still feel over full and somewhat sick from so much sugar (I can never finish one of those bakery muffins...if I indulge in one, I tend to just eat the crispy top and throw out the rest). It's lunchtime (at least according to the clock) and I can't even imagine eating another meal yet.

The other problem, aside from the huge portions served in the US (Monique, you'd probably be sick just looking at them!), is that there's also a distortion now of what a healthy weight is. It used to lean toward unhealthily skinny when I was a kid...everyone was on a diet trying to look like a stick...but now it leans toward somewhat overweight. Body condition is nearly as important too. A couch potato will have a lot of fat, but little muscle under it, and if they base their fitness entirely on weight, they'll still be overweight even though the number on the scale doesn't sound too bad. On the other hand, someone who is very muscular and with low body fat may look at the scale and think they're a bit overweight based on that number, but they're just muscular.

Anyway, this is all the reason why we can't give any hard and fast answers over the internet. It's best for a physician to look at your body size and shape, what your diet is, check your bloodwork for any deficiencies or signs of problems, and see if what you're eating is a sensible diet for your body and physical activities.

 

[Monique]

The calorie requirements that USDA advertises (that 2000-2500 range) is based on the adult male population, as far as I know. For a while, I was just curious how many calories I was eating just to see where my eating habits put me relative to that calorie range (because the number of servings they recommend eating in a day sounded insanely large to me), and counting every calorie, I would get up to around 1700 calories. And I thought I was eating a lot of food to get there.

Exactly the same here! My recommended daily intake is 2260 kcal, I entered a food diary to see my daily intake and it was on average 1820. And I also thought I ate a lot, people actually always comment that I am eating the whole day long.

Anyway, this is all the reason why we can't give any hard and fast answers over the internet. It's best for a physician to look at your body size and shape, what your diet is, check your bloodwork for any deficiencies or signs of problems, and see if what you're eating is a sensible diet for your body and physical activities.

I agree, a physician or a dietician.