There are lots of health niggles and irritations, aren’t there?

And some of them are hard to ignore.

So, I thought this week we might look at digestive problems because they certainly seem to be more prevalent in later life.

Sometimes, infected food is the culprit.

For example, a warning went out to people of over 65 a couple of years or so ago, claiming that up to 20% of smoked fish in the UK was harbouring listeria and that we should avoid eating it.

As it happens, I was quite ill myself after a meal of smoked mackerel and this may well have been linked to an incidence of listeria, so from that day I’ve avoided all smoked fish.

It’s a drag because I love it. But I don’t want to be so poorly again, and of course you can have a far worse outcome than I had.

But apart from food poisoning, all sorts of other gut problems can arise.

For example, you may have loved mushrooms passionately and eaten lots of them through life and then notice that these days they give you stomach cramps or severe indigestion.

You might react badly to bananas for the first time. Or find that you can no longer enjoy coffee.

Unless you have other........

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