Ensure Nutrition Drinks?

Just wondering, a lot of people on here use a multitude of supplements to manage and maintain both a healthy colon and their health as a whole, what are peoples thoughts on just using a supplement drink that basically contains all the vitamins/minerals that is required for the body to maintain health?

I use Ensure to nurse sick animals (I work with an animal rescue), for those that are unsure what it is, it is a hospital grade drink designed to provide the body with everything it needs for survival. It's used as a replacement for nutrition when people are unable to eat.

I've used it myself a few times when I've been very sick and unable to put on weight and its actually a really tasty drink that's also easy on the stomach (well, easy on mine!)

Has anyone used something like this regularly rather than purchase all the various vitamin/mineral pills for supplement?

Wish I could've used it. But: Made my UC symptoms so much worse! Must've been the dairy, soy, as well as several irritants to digestive track like carrageenan.

Hey! I drink Ensure, I can definitely agree with you on the tasty part, I have to stop myself from drinking too many, lol ;). But anyways, for me, I am somewhat lactose intolerant, so they can harm me or worsen my flare or UC symptoms if I drink too much. If they work for you, I would say keep drinking them! But I was just diagnosed and I'm not exactly sure if they are enough for someone with UC. The more experienced side of this forum should be able to help though. Glad this was posted & excited to see answers. :)

I drink them with no issues. I have also met some people who drank only ensure for like 2 months and swore it put hem in remission since it "rested the gut". Not sure I believe that though. All you can do is try them and see how it goes. My GI told me drink several a day when I needed to gain weight.

It definitely triggered my son's first flare - I had him on ensure for a couple of weeks with cereal in the morning and then he got into a major flare. I wouldn't suggest it for UC patients, of course some people may be able to tolerate it fine.

Greetings. I am attacking ensure and NOT the folks who drink it, so please don't take offense to my post. Nutrition is a very important issue to me. I think hospitals have a lot to catch up on when it comes to the realm of dietary science. Based on the foods I have seen given to patients @ hospitals, I do not think hospital food is any better than prison food.

Ensure will always be a medical paradox to me, because we also know that the same company (Abbott) makes the Humira biologic. I am generally not a fan of conspiracies, but this article about the controversial ingredient carrageenan in ensure caught my eye. IMHO, all the drink does is make sick patients sicker. Hospitals and clinics use it as THE recovery drink, but it seems like they don't really explain to patients why the sugar content and additives in it are not good for the body in the long term.

I gave it a fair shot when I was ill and consumed a lot more than I should have, but all it did was give me blood sugar highs and dizziness spells. To top it off, not only did I not gain weight, it gave me UC symptoms. I now suspect it was the carrageenan. I am also unsure if the vitamins and minerals absorbed in my GI tract because they are synthetically added in.

I don't think there is a better way to get nutrition in the body other than from the real source (like vitamin A from liver or butter, magnesium from leafy greens, calcium from raw milk, etc).

I will, however, recommend the absorb plus shakes by Jini Patel Thompson because it is formulated for those with IBD and uses whey protein contentrate. Whey protein has l-glutamine and other vital amino acids that are therapeutic for the colon. She knows her stuff when it comes to nutrition.

Best.

Thanks for the replies everyone, very interesting to read your experiences with it. I've been drinking one glass (with LGlutamine added) each morning for the last week and it doesn't seem to be doing me any harm but I will certainly keep it to a minimum. I'm in a flare at the moment so wanted to get the LGlutamine down.

Interestingly the animals I use it with for nutritional replacement are rats (who I love and adore so please don't hate on my little furry friends)... They appear to do extremely well on it, though its really hard to say what its doing to their insides, since they can't tell you if its giving them pain or not and any pain they're experiencing could be due to the initial fact they're ill. They also love it and when they wont eat or drink anything else they will still take Ensure, its like rat-crack... haha

Seems on a whole it has aggravated UC patients more than helped them, I was hoping to keep using it to mix LGlutamine in because I can't stand the bitter taste it gives mixed in water.

Just did a little research on carrageenan, sounds like a pretty horrid little additive that can be passed with the word 'natural' shoved in front of it. Natural of course does not mean healthy, but how terribly misleading!

Actually, I just checked the tin of Ensure, I use the powdered form and mix it in water myself because its cheaper. It doesn't have carrageenan on the list of ingredients. I wonder if its only added to the already mixed drinks rather than the powder form?

I didn't think there was any lactose in Ensure, but it does have warnings on the tin that it contains "milk and soy ingredients"

I don't have any issues with eating dairy foods so that whole aspect of Ensure doesn't bother me at all but there are a lot of people on here that have to avoid any dairy products, or products containing dairy ingredients

For me its more about time than energy to mix my own shakes, I really don't have the time to make fresh shakes daily. Actually I don't live anywhere near a supermarket either so getting ingredients to do so in the first place presents its own challenge. I order everything online

scum1 said...
I drink them with no issues. I have also met some people who drank only ensure for like 2 months and swore it put hem in remission since it "rested the gut". Not sure I believe that though. All you can do is try them and see how it goes. My GI told me drink several a day when I needed to gain weight.

For children with small bowel Crohn's, numerous studies have shown that a liquid diet is as effective as steroids as getting them into remission. If the liquid diet is a non-elemental one, then you are talking about drinks like Ensure or Modulen. (Or, in my case, Fortisip.)

It's less effective for adults and for colitis. Two types of liquid diet (one elemental, one non-elemental) didn't work for me. Actually, that's not entirely true. The non-elemental diet did seem to work for a couple of months, but that might have been more due to the steroids than to the diet - hard to tell. Regardless, my remission didn't last long very long; three months after my original hospitalisation, I was back in hospital again.

See for yourself. Ingredients list for original formula (may vary slightly by flavor):
"Water, Corn Maltodextrin, Sugar, Milk Protein Concentrate, Soy Oil, Soy Protein Isolate, Sucromalt, Canola Oil. Less than 0.5% of the Following: Corn Oil, Magnesium Phosphate, Potassium Citrate, Cellulose Gel, Natural & Artificial Flavor, Salt, Calcium Phosphate, Sodium Citrate, Calcium Carbonate, Potassium Chloride, Choline Chloride, Ascorbic Acid, Cellulose Gum, Monoglycerides, Soy Lecithin, Carrageenan, Potassium Hydroxide, Liquid Sucralose, Ferrous Sulfate, dl-Alpha-Tocopheryl Acetate, Acesulfame Potassium, Zinc Sulfate, Niacinamide, Manganese Sulfate, Calcium Pantothenate, Cupric Sulfate, Vitamin A Palmitate, Thiamine Chloride Hydrochloride, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin, Folic Acid, Chromium Chloride, Biotin, Sodium Molybdate, Potassium Iodide, Sodium Selenate, Phylloquinone, Vitamin D3, and Cyanocobalamin. Contains milk and soy ingredients."