Kirsten Jackson BSc Hons, PG Cert, RD is a UK Registered Dietitian who specializes in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and gut health.
You might already know her as The IBS Dietitian on Instagram, where she shares practical, evidence-based information about IBS with a community of more than 60,000 people.
Meet Kirsten
Kirsten has worked in dietetics since qualifying in 2012, including within gastroenterology in the UK National Health Service. She completed postgraduate training in Advanced Dietetics at the University of Nottingham as well as specialist FODMAP training at King’s College London.
She is also a published author with Bloomsbury and has contributed her expertise to professional dietetic resources, including the IBS section of the British Dietetic Association’s Manual of Dietetic Practice.
Today, she works with people with IBS around the world through her Take Control Program, which combines IBS education with personalized support in a small-group setting.
We caught up with Kirsten to talk about IBS, the low FODMAP diet, why people often feel as though they have “tried everything”, and what actually helps people move towards long-term symptom control.
Kirsten, how did you become interested in IBS and the low FODMAP diet?
I actually came to IBS from both a professional and a personal perspective.
When I qualified as a dietitian, the low FODMAP diet wasn’t something we had covered extensively during my undergraduate training. I first started using it while working in gastroenterology in the NHS after learning from a more senior dietitian, and later completed formal specialist training at King’s College London.
As part of that training, we had to experience the process ourselves. Two things became obvious very quickly.
Firstly, following a low FODMAP diet properly is much harder than a list of foods makes it look. People need practical guidance on portions, meals, eating out, food labels and, crucially, what happens after the restriction phase.
Secondly, I realized how much my own digestive symptoms could improve.
Your own gut health journey turned out to be a little more complicated than IBS, didn’t it?
Yes. At the time I hadn’t yet been diagnosed with celiac disease.
That experience has influenced the way I practice enormously because digestive symptoms should not automatically be labelled as IBS.
Someone might remove wheat or gluten, feel better and conclude that gluten is their problem. But wheat also contains fructans, which are FODMAPs, so improvement on a gluten-free diet doesn’t by itself tell us what caused the symptoms.
And celiac disease is completely different from a FODMAP intolerance. Someone with celiac disease needs strict lifelong avoidance of gluten to protect their health. Someone who experiences symptoms from fructans may tolerate them perfectly well up to a certain amount.
That is why getting an appropriate medical assessment before starting unnecessary long-term restriction is so important.
After my celiac disease was diagnosed and treated, I still had digestive symptoms. Once other causes had been considered, I was diagnosed with IBS as well.
The low FODMAP process helped me work out some of my own dietary triggers, but what I now know after years of working exclusively with IBS is that food is only one part of the picture.
Has your approach to IBS changed since you first started using the low FODMAP diet?
Massively.
The low FODMAP diet can be an incredibly useful clinical tool and there are now multiple randomized controlled trials supporting its use for IBS.
But it isn’t an “IBS diet” that everybody needs to stay on.
The restriction phase is temporary. The important part is systematically reintroducing FODMAPs and ultimately personalizing the diet so that someone is eating as broadly and normally as their individual tolerance allows.
I also don’t automatically put every person with IBS on a low FODMAP diet.
IBS is multifactorial. Symptoms can be affected by bowel motility, stool consistency, gut sensitivity, meal size, fiber type and quantity, caffeine, fat, FODMAPs, sleep, stress, the menstrual cycle and many other factors.
If someone is constipated, for example, simply removing more foods may not address why they are bloated or uncomfortable. Someone with urgent diarrhea after breakfast may need a completely different strategy.
Good IBS management should be based on the person’s symptoms and bowel pattern rather than giving everybody the same food list.
You work with people with IBS from all over the world. What do you think holds people back from gaining control of their symptoms?
One of the biggest things I hear is:
“I’ve tried everything.”
But when we go through what they have actually tried, there often hasn’t been a structured process.
They’ve removed gluten. Then dairy. Then perhaps tried low FODMAP. They might have bought probiotics, digestive enzymes or supplements after seeing recommendations online. They have experimented with fasting, eating “cleaner” or cutting back further and further.
The result can be an extremely limited diet without a clear understanding of what actually triggers their symptoms.
They also start to become frightened of food.
Some people reach a point where they won’t eat out because they can’t find anything on the menu that fits their “safe” list. Even when they eat foods they consider safe, they’re anxious about whether their gut will react.
That is very different from genuinely controlling IBS.
The missing piece is often having someone step back, look at the whole picture and take them through it in a logical order.
Is that why you created the Take Control Programme?
Exactly.
Take Control is my 12-week IBS program designed for people who are tired of trying random strategies and want a structured, evidence-based approach to managing their symptoms.
Rather than handing somebody another list of foods to avoid, I teach them how to understand their own IBS.
We look at areas including:
- understanding your IBS and bowel pattern
- identifying what is actually driving your symptoms
- improving bowel regularity where needed
- fiber and how different types affect symptoms
- FODMAPs and whether you actually need the low FODMAP process
- identifying your personal food triggers and tolerance levels
- gut sensitivity and the gut-brain connection
- eating patterns, caffeine, fat and other non-FODMAP food triggers
- sleep, stress and movement
- managing flare-ups without unnecessarily restricting your diet
- building a long-term diet that is nutritionally adequate and realistic
The aim isn’t perfection and it isn’t to promise somebody they will never have another digestive symptom.
The goal is for them to understand their gut well enough that IBS stops dictating their everyday decisions.
Save this article
Enter your email address and we'll send it straight to your inbox.
How does Take Control work?
The program runs over 12 weeks.
Members receive access to the educational program and practical resources, but importantly, they are not expected to work through everything alone.
I run weekly small-group support calls, with groups deliberately kept very small so that there is time to talk about individual symptoms, challenges and progress.
Members can bring their questions to the calls and I can help them work out what their next step should be rather than becoming overwhelmed and changing five things at once.
There is also a private community for support between calls, and members retain lifetime access to the course materials.
It combines the structure of a program with much more access to a specialist dietitian than a traditional self-guided online course.
So it isn’t simply a low FODMAP course?
No, and that distinction is really important.
Some members may need the low FODMAP diet. Others might only need a targeted FODMAP reduction, or may have completely different factors that need addressing first.
My job isn’t to make somebody’s diet as restrictive as possible.
It is to help them work out the least restrictive strategy that gives them meaningful symptom improvement.
The program also teaches people what to do after they have identified their triggers because life doesn’t happen under perfect controlled conditions.
You’re going to travel. Eat in restaurants. Have Christmas dinner. Get stressed. Have a poor night’s sleep. Have an IBS flare.
Long-term IBS management means understanding how to navigate those situations rather than trying to maintain an impossibly perfect diet forever.
Do you still work with people one-to-one?
Yes.
I also offer a more intensive three-month 1:1 program for people who need highly individualized support.
That can be particularly useful where symptoms are more complicated, several dietary or medical factors overlap, or somebody simply prefers working individually rather than within a group.
However, Take Control allows me to provide a high level of specialist support to a small group of people at the same time, which makes it a great option for many people with IBS.
What are three things you would tell someone who is currently struggling with IBS?
1. Make sure it actually is IBS
Don’t self-diagnose IBS based on symptoms or an online quiz.
IBS can cause abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea, constipation and changes in bowel habits, but other conditions can cause similar symptoms.
A healthcare professional can assess your symptoms, check for red flags and decide which investigations are appropriate.
Typical initial investigations may include blood tests such as a full blood count, inflammatory markers and celiac screening. Additional testing, such as fecal calprotectin, may be appropriate depending on your age and symptoms.
This is particularly important before removing gluten because celiac testing needs to be carried out while you are still regularly eating gluten.
2. Stop assuming every symptom means you have eaten the wrong food
Food absolutely can trigger IBS symptoms, but it is not the only explanation.
The timing of meals, amount eaten, stool pattern, gut motility, constipation, fiber, caffeine, fat, sleep, stress, hormones and gut sensitivity can all contribute.
If your response to every symptom is to eliminate another food, your diet can become smaller and smaller without actually solving the problem.
3. Use a structured process
Tracking can be useful, but the purpose isn’t to obsess over every ingredient you eat.
Look for patterns.
When does the symptom happen? What does your stool look like? Does it happen immediately after eating or many hours later? Does portion size matter? Are your symptoms different when you’re constipated, sleeping badly, travelling or under pressure?
Then change one relevant thing at a time and assess what happens.
IBS management becomes much easier when you stop guessing.
What do you ultimately want people to take away from your work?
I want people to know that managing IBS shouldn’t mean living on a tiny collection of “safe” foods.
So many people come to me believing their gut is completely unpredictable.
What they often need isn’t another supplement, another exclusion diet or another Instagram list of foods to avoid. They need someone to help them make sense of the patterns.
Once you understand why symptoms are happening, you can make much more targeted decisions.
That is ultimately what Take Control is designed to teach.
Learn more about Kirsten Jackson’s 12-week Take Control IBS Programme at The IBS Dietitian.
