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Diet for an attack of pancreatitis

, medical expert
Last reviewed: 04.07.2025
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Naturally, patients suffering from inflammation of the pancreas need to know what the diet is during an attack of pancreatitis. It is necessary to distinguish between the drinking and nutrition regime during the attack itself and the diet during the recovery period after this peak condition.

Experts believe that a properly organized diet during an attack can help the patient improve his condition. Therefore, in the first two or three days of a severe exacerbation of the disease, strict fasting is necessary. At this time, fluid intake is indicated, namely water - purified and non-carbonated. The patient needs to drink up to one and a half liters of life-giving moisture per day, and in small portions - up to a quarter of a glass. Such drinking should be regular - once every half hour, and warm. You can drink alkaline mineral water as a drink.

Perhaps, if the specialist allows, drink a weak decoction of rose hips or weakly brewed green tea. Sometimes it is recommended to diversify drinks with weak tea with a small addition of honey or non-carbonated mineral water "Borjomi". But such additions to the drinking regime should not be made independently, but only after consultation with the attending physician and not on the first day of the attack.

Other delicacies, which now include all food and other drinks for the patient, will have to be abandoned until the patient's condition improves and the doctors allow him to end his fast and resort to restorative nutrition. Usually, such a diet lasts three days, and then comes a period of long rehabilitation of the patient, including with the help of nutrition.

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Nutrition after an attack of pancreatitis

The basic rules of nutrition after the acute symptoms of the disease have been removed are as follows:

  • For the first three days after the attack, the patient is on therapeutic fasting, which was described in more detail above.
  • From the fourth day after the onset of the attack, the patient begins to eat in accordance with diet number 5p.
  • Food is taken fractionally, in small quantities, five or six times a day.
  • Overeating is prohibited. It is better to eat a little food, feeling a slight feeling of hunger after eating.
  • Food should be prepared in the form of a mushy consistency, which eliminates mechanical irritation of the stomach and continued stimulation of inflammation of the pancreas.
  • The daily food intake should contain a sufficient amount of protein products.
  • Food rich in carbohydrates is reduced in quantity.
  • Fatty dishes and food products are excluded from the diet of a sick person.
  • Other foods with a strong taste are also prohibited – salty, spicy, smoked, pickled and canned foods.
  • In the first year after the exacerbation of the disease, not only the above-mentioned food is prohibited, but also fresh baked goods and bread, as well as fresh vegetables and fruits. They, like other prohibited foods, cause fermentation processes in the body, which is not at all useful for the restoration of the pancreas.
  • If you ignore these recommendations, the body will not overcome the disease, and the pancreas will again begin to inflame and deteriorate. In addition, throughout life, a person who has experienced a peak state of pancreatitis will need to eat in accordance with this diet, excluding harmful products and dishes from the diet. Nutrition after an attack of pancreatitis is a kind of medicine on the table that helps a person maintain their well-being in an optimal state.

Diet after an attack of pancreatitis

For three days the patient was subjected to complete fasting (or fasting with the addition of rosehip decoction, weak tea and mineral water). On the fourth day after the onset of the attack, the patient switches to a special diet called diet No. 5p.

This type of diet is intended for people suffering from inflammatory processes in the pancreas, namely pancreatitis in acute or chronic form. This type of diet is included in diet No. 5, which is intended for people with problems with the digestive system.

If we touch on diet No. 5p, it was created with the aim of restoring the exocrine function of the pancreas. This concerns the regeneration of all food channels, as well as the prevention of fat infiltration and dystrophic manifestations in the pancreas and liver. This diet helps to reduce the state of excitability in the gallbladder, which has a good effect on the recovery processes in the pancreas.

The main principle of the above dietary nutrition is to do everything possible to protect the pancreas from mechanical and chemical effects. Diet No. 5p is divided into two components. The first is a diet for acute pancreatitis and for manifestations of exacerbation of chronic pancreatitis. The second is for chronic forms of pancreatitis, but during the period of symptom reduction and in the remission stage after an exacerbation. At the moment, we are interested in the first version of the diet.

The diet after an attack of pancreatitis involves the following diet:

  • Food is steamed or boiled in water.
  • The dishes should be liquid or semi-liquid - mashed, of a mushy consistency, well chopped.
  • The patient should eat every three to four hours.
  • There should be at least five to six meals per day.
  • There should be an increased amount of protein in food products and dishes. In terms of quantity, about eighty grams of protein per day are taken, of which a third should be animal proteins.
  • The fat content is reduced to a minimum - only forty to sixty grams per day, a quarter of which should be of plant origin.
  • The amount of carbohydrates in food is significantly reduced - to two hundred grams per day, of which only twenty-five grams are sugar.
  • It is prohibited to consume extractive substances that can stimulate the secretory function of the digestive system.
  • The use of coarse fiber is prohibited.
  • The amount of free liquid drunk per day should be one and a half liters.

The list of recommended foods and drinks is as follows:

  • Bakery products are recommended only in the form of wheat bread rusks, in the amount of fifty grams per day.
  • Meat dishes can be eaten lean and sinewy. Therefore, it is allowed to use beef, rabbit, chicken, and turkey. They can be steamed or boiled. Also good are pureed dishes - in the form of soufflé and so on.
  • Fish is allowed only in lean varieties and only in mashed form - soufflé, quenelles, and so on.
  • You can only eat a protein omelette steamed from one or two eggs per day. The yolk is mixed into other dishes in the amount of half per day.
  • Dairy products allowed include milk added to dishes, low-fat cottage cheese with a non-acidic taste, which is prepared like a paste, and steamed cottage cheese puddings.
  • As for fats, you can use unsalted butter and refined vegetable oils added to ready-made dishes.
  • Recommended porridges are pureed and semi-liquid buckwheat, oatmeal, pearl barley, wheat groats, semolina, rice, etc. Puddings and soufflés can be made from cereal products.
  • Vegetables are represented by potatoes, carrots, zucchini, cauliflower. They should be used to make mashed potatoes and steamed puddings.
  • You can eat slimy cereal soups made from oatmeal, pearl barley, rice and semolina.
  • Sweet dishes that you can eat include strained compote, jelly, mousse and jelly prepared with xylitol or sorbitol.
  • As for drinks, you can only drink weak teas and rosehip infusion.
  • A suitable sauce would be a semi-sweet fruit and berry sauce.

The list of prohibited dishes and food products is as follows:

  • All bakery products and flour dishes are prohibited, except for those listed on the permitted list.
  • Fatty meats and poultry, which include dishes made from lamb, pork, goose, duck, liver, brains, kidneys, as well as sausage, canned food and smoked meat. You cannot eat lean meats fried or stewed.
  • Fatty fish, as well as fried, stewed, smoked, salted fish dishes. Canned fish and caviar are prohibited.
  • Eggs are excluded, except in the permitted form of preparation and quantity.
  • Of the dairy products, you cannot consume milk as a drink, as well as sour cream, cream, fermented milk drinks, fatty cottage cheese and sour cottage cheese, cheeses - especially fatty and salty ones.
  • All fats except those recommended. Especially frying foods using fats.
  • From cereals - millet, barley, crumbly porridges.
  • All legumes.
  • Pasta dishes.
  • Of the vegetables, you will have to refrain from eating white cabbage, radish, turnip, radish, rutabaga, spinach, sorrel, garlic and onions.
  • You cannot eat soups made with meat, fish, mushroom and vegetable broths. Milk soups, shchi, borscht, okroshka and beetroot soups are prohibited.
  • All sweets are excluded except those permitted above.
  • All drinks, especially carbonated sweet and mineral drinks, fruit and vegetable juices, coffee, cocoa, and so on.

What can you eat during an attack of pancreatitis?

Nutrition during an attack of pancreatitis plays an important role in restoring the normal state after the problem has become active. More precisely, its absence, as one of the main factors provoking the deterioration of a person's condition.

Therefore, for three days from the moment of diagnosis of an attack of the disease, it is necessary to strictly abstain from food, or rather, fast. Complete fasting is important because food, entering the digestive system, begins to activate the development of inflammation in the pancreas. This occurs due to the fact that digestive processes stimulate irritation in the organ, which leads to the production of enzymes that are needed to process food. Thus, the organ is not at rest to recover, and further participation in the scheme of splitting and assimilation of nutrients by the pancreas provokes inflammation in it. In parallel with the inflammatory processes, pain also increases, which worsens the general condition of the patient and can aggravate the disease and slow down recovery.

During the three specified days, only drinking is recommended. And pure water in small doses. Because water also affects the pancreas, which is completely unacceptable for the treatment of the disease.

Therefore, when answering the question of the patient and his relatives about what can be eaten during an attack of pancreatitis, one can say with complete confidence: "Nothing." And this will be an absolutely correct and fair decision.

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