VICDOC Summer 2025 - Flipbook - Page 7
The diet changed how we think about
absorbed in the small intestine and
and treat irritable bowel syndrome
rapidly fermented in the large intestine –
(IBS). Since its development at
might be the culprit.
Monash University in the noughties,
it has been successfully used to
support people with IBS around the
world. We caught up with one of its
founders, A/Prof Emma Halmos (PhD,
Accredited Practising Dietitian), about
FODMAP’s development, why it works,
and how it’s evolving.
Twenty years ago, a team of researchers
at Monash University, including PhD
student Emma Halmos, were on a
Emma’s thesis helped turn that theory
into concrete evidence and became the
foundation for what we now know as the
FODMAP diet.
Together with colleagues A/Prof Jane
Muir and Prof Peter Gibson, Emma
identified FODMAPs as a single group (a
world first), developed ways to measure
them in foods and ran controlled trials
demonstrating the effectiveness of a
diet they named after the sugars: the
mission to test a simple idea: could
FODMAP (fermentable oligo-, di-,
limiting certain carbohydrates relieve the
mono-saccharides and polyols) diet.
symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome?
By systematically restricting and
Researchers had been trying to work
re-introducing foods containing
out why certain foods seemed to
FODMAPs, the diet helps people
trigger IBS and suspected that a group
with IBS understand and identify
of fermentable sugars – short-chain
foods that trigger them and manage
carbohydrates that are poorly
their symptoms.
A FODMAP diet is a 3 step diet
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