The functional nutrition approach to pancreatitis focuses on identifying and addressing the root causes of symptoms through diet and lifestyle changes. This whole body, root cause approach is individualized based on a comprehensive functional nutrition assessment, individual symptoms, health history, and labs aiming to restore balance to the digestive system.

What is Pancreatitis?

Pancreatitis is health condition that causes inflammation of the pancreas. In easier terms, separate the suffix -itis from the root word “pancreas”. The suffix -itis refers to “inflammation of” attach it to the root word and you get inflammation of the pancreas. There are two types of pancreatitis: acute pancreatitis (short term) and chronic pancreatitis (long term).

The whole body, root cause approach to Healing Pancreatitis from a functional nutrition perspective:

Overall from a whole body, root cause approach, to heal pancreatitis we would look at using a therapeutic diet to first manage symptoms, targeted supplements, and then work to rebalance the gut using the 5R Treatment Protocol linked here. Any potential root causes are identified using the STAIN method specifically looking at stress, toxins (mold, plastics, heavy metals), adverse food reactions, infections, and nutritional imbalances.

During the initial comprehensive functional nutrition assessment, we will look at:

• Past Medical History: initial comprehensive patient questionnaire and symptom questionnaire, root causes: STAIN (stress, toxins, adverse food reactions, infections, nutritional imbalances), history of N/V/D/C (nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation), family history (GI disorders, celiac disease), current medications/OTC’s and dietary supplements, lifestyle factors such as sleep, stress, exercise, etc.
• Anthropometrics: changes in body weight, weight loss, weight gain.
• Nutrition Focused Physical Exam: abdominal distention/bloating, hair loss/hair thinning, red, swollen, or coated tongue, skin rashes.
• Dietary and Food Habits: nutrient density in meals, caloric intake, meal pattern and timing, macronutrient balance, fiber types and sources, processed food and refined sugar intake, alcohol intake, adverse food reactions (food allergies or intolerances), FODMAPs, lactose, fructose, or sucrose intolerance, gluten sensitivity, histamine intolerance, prebiotic sources, probiotic sources, fermented foods, gut microbiome diversity.
• Conventional Labs: Comprehensive metabolic profile (CMP), CBC with differential, complete iron profile including serum ferritin, serum 25-OH Vitamin D, serum B12.
• Functional Labs: GI-MAP by diagnostic solutions or OAT test by mosaic diagnostics.
• Wearables Data: apple watch for exercise/HRV (heart rate variability), whoop for exercise/HRV, oura ring for sleep tracking.

A personalized functional nutrition care plan will be created for you based on the data from the initial comprehensive functional nutrition assessment that includes personalized diet therapy that is condition specific, personalized targeted supplements, as well as lifestyle changes in stress level, sleep quality, and exercise which are important for overall health.

By addressing these underlying causes — through personalized approaches like nutrition, simple lifestyle changes, and targeted supplements — functional nutrition aims to bring the body back into balance and resolve pancreatitis at its root.

What are common symptoms associated with pancreatitis?

Symptoms are a sign that something is off internally within one of these systems: Inflammation, Gut Dysbiosis or Gut Imbalance, Impaired Detoxification, Hormonal Imbalance, Mitochondrial Dysfunction, Circadian Rhythm Disturbances, Oxidative Stress, Neuro-disruption, or Immune dysregulation. Symptoms are essentially your body crying out for help in the only way that they know how to communicate. Symptoms associated with pancreatitis include:

• Abdominal pain
• Abdominal distention
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Loss of appetite
• Weight loss
• Steatorrhea
• Gas

How can I help treat pancreatitis using functional lab testing?

You may order a GI-MAP stool test to further assess gut health imbalances or an OAT test to assess nutrient deficiencies that may result from malabsorption of nutrients resulting from pancreatitis.

My storefront is linked here to order functional labs, which is signed off by a nationally-licensed physician, to assess for gut health issues, hormonal imbalances, or vitamin/mineral deficiencies. If you need help creating a personalized functional nutrition care plan based on the interpretation of any of the above functional labs, you can work with us here.

Functional lab testing would be a good idea if you really wanted to hone in on the specifics of gut microbiome imbalances, hormonal imbalances, vitamin/mineral deficiencies.

Are there any therapeutic diets used in healing pancreatitis from a root cause approach?

There is a difference in therapeutic diets used to heal acute and chronic pancreatitis. A diet that aims to first manage symptoms, reduce inflammation of the pancreas, and support blood sugar regulation. If needed, we can also focus on healing and repairing the gut, slowly re-introducing new foods, identifying any trigger foods, and then work to rebalance the gut using the 5R Treatment Protocol linked here.

Looking at it from the STAIN framework — Stress, Toxins, Adverse Food Reactions, Infections, and Nutritional Imbalances — we aim to identify the root causes and design a personalized nutrition care plan based on your unique biochemical individuality. Biochemical individuality is the concept that each of us has a different nutrition blueprint to achieve optimal wellness. We each have our own, unique genetic expression and that is shown in a personalized nutrition care plan made just for you.

Tip: Keep a food journal so that pre and post meals you can become more in tune with your body and see how certain meals make you feel. Continuously check in with yourself to see how you are feeling, this is the type of subjective information that only you can know for yourself and make sure to share this information with the dietitian that you are working with!

Ask yourself: How do I feel after eating this specific meal? *insert symptom here* It’s helpful to have a dietitian that is able to look at your food journals so that they can decipher what specific ingredient or a combination of ingredients that may be causing these symptoms. Having a food journal is also helpful to look for any potential food reactions that may be related to pancreatitis.

Caution: Restrictive eating due to symptoms associated with pancreatitis may lead to an eating disorder. It is important to not be constantly under eating, resulting in less food and nutrients in the body, just because it results in less symptoms! It is still possible to eat high quality and nutrient dense meals with your favorite ingredients.

Are there any supplements, Probiotic strains, botanicals, or herbs that are helpful in healing pancreatitis?

There are many supplements, botanicals, and herbs that can be used to help support healing of pancreatitis. Remember supplements are there to “supplement” or to help the main treatment which is using a food as medicine approach to healing. Some general helpful supplements for pancreatitis are:

• DGL
• Vitamin D3 + K2

Make sure to order from a high quality and third party tested brand instead of purchasing from Amazon where practically anyone can sell anything without any rigorous testing. To make it easier for you, you may order from my supplement dispensary below through Fullscript’s catalog where each brand and product meets strict top quality standards. You can learn more about third party testing here.

My supplement dispensary is linked here (with a 30% off discount!) and you do not need to be a client to place an order.

What are some diet and lifestyle tips that can help me during the process of healing pancreatitis?

Look at sleep, diet, exercise, and stress management.

Here are some helpful tips for you to begin the process of healing pancreatitis:

• Chew your food mindfully and thoroughly
• Limit intake of ultra-processed foods and foods with refined sugars
• Have a stress management routine! (traditional yoga, yoga nidra, breathwork)
• For bloating, you can use herbal teas such as teas with fennel, licorice, chamomile, and peppermint.
• Having a routine that includes any form of daily movement: walking for 30 minutes daily has been shown to improve symptoms and systemic inflammation.
• Yoga helps to reduce anxiety and stress resulting in improved symptoms.
• Using a bidet

Gentle reminder: Don’t stress yourself with an all or nothing mentality where you feel like you have to implement everything on this list all at once. Sometimes in order to reach the end goal, you need to take baby steps at first and build these habits bit by bit.

How can I heal pancreatitis with the help of a functional nutrition dietitian?

Each person is unique and this is recognized in a personalized functional nutrition assessment and intervention plan that engages and empowers the patient in this process to restore optimal function, manage symptoms and promote overall health and well-being.

Functional nutrition addresses the whole person, not just an isolated set of symptoms. We look at it from a root-cause perspective and create a focus on prevention through nutrition, therapeutic diets, targeted supplementation, exercise, interpretation of conventional and/or functional lab testing, botanicals, detoxification protocols, and stress management tools.

Overall from a whole body, root cause approach, to treat pancreatitis with nutrition therapy we would look at using a therapeutical diet, targeted supplements, herbs, and then work to rebalance the gut using the 5R Treatment Protocol linked here.

By addressing these underlying causes — through personalized approaches like evidence-based nutrition, simple lifestyle changes, and targeted supplements — functional nutrition aims to bring the body back into balance and resolve pancreatitis at its root.