Abstract
Because the dietary vegetable intake, that is, dietary fiber intake, and the water intake of dialysis patients are limited, the patients often develop constipation.
The subjects were 6 inpatients (3 men and 3 women) on maintenance hemodialysis who were using laxatives to treat constipation. We added 10g of water-soluble fiber jelly (polydextrose) to their meals once a day beginning on October 1, 1993, assessed their bowel movements, and evaluated the usefulness of polydextrose.
An increase in defecation days, decrease in amounts of laxative used, softness of their stools and the regularity of defecation time were notied, noted, observed in more than half of the subjects.
Addition of polydextrose to meals which did not contain potassium appeared to be a useful method of regulating the bowel movements of patients on maintenance hemodialysis.
