🍏Summer Edition: Travel Tips and Summer-Inspired Recipes

This Month's Newsletter is Packed with Tips for Summer Travel, Refreshing Drinks to Help you Stay Hydrated, and Recipes for Summer Holidays!

Plus Some Research Highlights and Upcoming Events

Planning a Trip This Summer? Essential Travel Nutrition Tips

Traveling with a GI condition can present unique challenges, especially when it comes to maintaining a balanced diet. Whether you are planning a vacation or a business trip, here are some essential tips to help you manage your diet and ensure a comfortable travel experience.

Read Article Here

Stay Hydrated with These Summer-Inspired Drinks

For those with digestive disorders, staying hydrated is especially important since loose stools, inflammation, and certain medications can increase fluid and electrolyte loss. As we enter the hot summer months, dehydration becomes a bigger concern with time spent outdoors in the sun and sweating. Even mild dehydration can contribute to fatigue, headaches, dizziness, and difficulty concentrating. Drinking fluids regularly throughout the day and replacing lost electrolytes during flares can help support overall health, energy levels, and digestive function. Here are some fun summer-inspired drinks to help you stay hydrated all summer long!

Watermelon Refresher

Basil-Infused Strawberry Agua Fresca

Peach and Ginger Smoothie

Coconut Water Blueberry Smoothie

Modern Diets Shape Digestive Health

As #DigestiveHealthMonth draws to a close, we support the United European Gastroenterology position paper on nutrition as a mainstay to prevent digestive diseases:

✅ Modern diets ⬆️ digestive disease and cancer risk

✅ Reducing the current burden in digestive diseases and cancers requires a shift from an overreliance on individual responsibility ➡️ policy-driven reform that improves access to healthy and affordable food choices

✅ Reformulation, front-of-package labeling (ie, warning labels for products high in sugar, sodium, or saturated fat), and sugar-sweetened beverage taxation may be cost-effective measures towards a healthier food system

👉 Read the position paper Here

Your Gut and the Foods You Eat Aren’t Always to Blame for Abdominal Distension

❌ Visible distension is caused by excess intestinal gas

✅ Many patients with visible distension have intestinal gas volumes similar to those of healthy individuals

✅ The problem: the gut and the brain react exaggeratedly to everyday stimuli, such as the food you eat

✅ Recent findings suggest the most likely cause of an increased abdominal girth is the contraction of the diaphragm (descend) and the subsequent relaxation of the abdominal wall muscles

✅ Diaphragmatic breathing may help you manage abdominal distension

What Do We Mean By Gut Health?

A new Consensus Statement led by the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics has proposed a new definition of gut health:

“A state of normal gastrointestinal function without active gastrointestinal disease and gut-related symptoms that affect quality of life”

What’s new from bench to bedside?

✅ Measurements of gut health should go beyond lab tests or the gut microbiome to include both how well the digestive system functions and how people feel day to day

✅ Symptoms and disease do not always align: People may feel fine, but have active disease, and vice versa

✅ It’s dietary patterns and overall habits, not individual foods, that shift the dial to improving gut health

Food The Main Course to Digestive Health is Celebrating 10 years in 2026

This is the 10-year anniversary of the Food the Main Course conference! Taking place on July 29th-31st, 2026, at The Vanguard in Ann Arbor, MI, this program is offered both in person and virtually by expert faculty and dietitians at the University of Michigan. This course provides knowledge and training for dieticians with an interest in gastrointestinal diseases and disorders. Click here for more information.

GI DREAM Symposium 2026 - Food, Function and Foundations in Gastroenterology

This Symposium, being held in Melbourne, Australia, on Saturday, August 1st, brings together leading experts in nutrition and gastrointestinal health. Designed for dietitians, gastroenterologists, and multidisciplinary clinicians, this one-day event offers a unique opportunity to deepen clinical knowledge, engage with emerging research, and connect with peers passionate about advancing gastrointestinal care. Key topics include: gut motility, disorders of gut–brain interaction, nutrition in GI disease, surgical outcomes, and practical dietary management strategies. If unable to attend in person, the recordings will be available to those who register. Click here for more information about this event.

Summer Recipes

With Father’s Day and the Fourth of July coming up, the summer gatherings are in full swing! We shared several great BBQ recipes in our May newsletter. Here, we are following up with more recipes that are great for the upcoming summer holidays to celebrate all the dads and the 250th birthday of America! Find more recipes like these in our recipe database here.

Watermelon Gazpacho

Grilled Skirt Steak Fajitas

Fresh Herb Potato Salad

Dairy-Free No-Bake Raw Cheesecake

Know someone with IBD, IBS, Celiac, or EoE looking for information on evidence-based nutrition? Forward them this newsletter! They can sign up to join our community and receive our monthly newsletter here.

We are grateful for the collaboration and support of our Corporate Partners!

*Please note that the GI Nutrition Foundation does not provide medical advice. The content provided here is for informational purposes only. Patients should always talk with their healthcare providers before changing their diet.*