Video: Bananas & Hemorrhoids

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Bananas in the diet can help with hemorrhoids by increasing bowel movements when eaten in conjunction with plenty of water. Discover how the high fiber content of bananas can help to alleviate hemorrhoids with advice from a registered and licensed dietitian in this free video on nutrition and diets.

Video Transcript

My name is Christine Marquette and I'm a registered and licensed dietitian with the Austin Regional Clinic and I'm going to talk to you about bananas and hemorrhoids. Bananas have actually been reported in Chinese medicine to help with hemorrhoids for a couple of different reasons. Bananas themselves do have a lot of fiber, but for the most part, if they're going to be eaten to increase bowel movements, the person that's eating the bananas needs to make sure that they drink plenty of water. High fiber foods by themselves will not necessarily increase bowel movements or actually cause your bowel movements to be softer. It's very important that you also include enough fluid, particularly water. High fiber alone without enough fluid will actually increase constipation. So you have to be very careful if you're going to use bananas for additional fiber, make sure that you're also drinking plenty of water another part of the banana, again according to Chinese medicine, that helps with hemorrhoids is actually the banana peel itself. The banana peel itself is very slippery, has components similar to say like a petroleum jelly. So the banana peel itself actually placed in the area of inflammation has been said to decrease inflammation, decrease pain in the area. However that will be a rather tricky thing to try, very difficult to actually get the banana peel to stay in the area, so... better off actually eating the bananas for an increase in fiber, drinking plenty of fluids to again make sure that you're having regular bowel movements. When you have regular bowel movements, that helps decrease your risk of developing hemorrhoids or aggravating hemorrhoids that you may already have.

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Bananas & Hemorrhoids

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