6 Ways Pears Can Affect Your Digestion

People in the United States don’t eat enough calcium, vitamin D, potassium, and fiber, says Isabel Maples, RDN, a member of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery based in Haymarket, Virginia. But pears are good sources of all four nutrients.

Like other plant-based foods, pears generally benefit your digestive system, keeping blood glucose levels stable and preventing constipation by helping what you eat pass easily through your body. But pears’ sugar alcohol content can also lead to gas, bloating, abdominal pain, and diarrhea.

Learn how pears affect digestion, as well as the other benefits and side effects of eating them.

1. Pears Can Help Support Regular Digestion

Pears are high in fiber, which plays an outsized role in digestion and gut health. One medium-sized pear contains 5.52 grams of fiber, according to the USDA. Most of this is insoluble fiber, and the rest is soluble, Maples says.

While your body can’t digest either variety of fiber, both provide health and digestive benefits, including helping ease diarrhea and prevent constipation:

• Soluble fiber: This variety is digested in the large intestine (colon) and can produce gas. It feeds the “good” gut bacteria and lowers cholesterol, among other benefits. “Fiber is essential to support beneficial microbes,” says Kalidas Shetty, PhD, founding director of the Global Institute of Food Security & International Agriculture (GIFSIA) at North Dakota State University in Fargo. It can also slow down digestion time, which may help if you have diarrhea.
• Insoluble fiber: This type of fiber moves right through your digestive tract, providing the “bulk” that keeps you regular. “The idea is that keeping things moving along in the gut means less constipation, and toxins don’t have time to build up,” Maples explains.

2. Pears Can Cause Gas

Gas starts with the fermentation of sugar alcohols, or polyols, in the large intestine, states Carol Ireton-Jones, RDN, PhD, owner of Good Nutrition for Good Living in Dallas. “You may find this more in someone with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) than someone without IBS,” she says.

Your body doesn’t absorb polyols well, Ireton-Jones advises. “A little might be okay, but if you eat too much, it’s going to go from the small intestine to the large intestine, where it’s not supposed to be. Here, it can cause things like diarrhea, gas, bloating, and abdominal pain,” Dr. Ireton-Jones says.

One type of sugar alcohol or polyol is sorbitol, which you’ll find in diet products, candy, medications, and chewing gum, according to Kaiser Permanente. Consuming it can lead to gas, bloating, cramping, abdominal pain, and diarrhea, says Elena Ivanina, DO, an integrative gastroenterologist in New York City and founder of Gut Love.

3. Pears Can Cause Bloating

Gas often — but not always — leads to bloating. (As many as 90 percent of people with IBS can experience bloating, according to the Cleveland Clinic.)

Polyols aren’t solely to blame for both gas and bloating. Pears are also high in sucrose, a two-part sugar (disaccharide) that enzymes break down into a one-part sugar (monosaccharide) called fructose.

Sucrose and fructose provide fuel for cell energy, but your body can only absorb about 25 grams of fructose, or about six teaspoons, a day, Maples says. If there’s too much of this simple sugar, it bypasses cells and reaches the large intestine, where it provides a feast for bacteria and leads to more gas, cautions Dr. Ireton-Jones.

4. Pears Can Lead to Abdominal Pain

Gas can then lead to abdominal pain, which is often mistaken for other things. According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, when gas builds up on the left side of the colon, it can be misdiagnosed as heart disease. On the right side of the colon, it could be mistaken for gallstones or appendicitis.

People often get rid of gas and its associated bloating and pain by burping (belching) and flatulence.

5. Pears Can Act as a Natural Laxative

Pears are often touted as a natural laxative to help you poop, though they may not, on their own, be enough to relieve constipation. “I would never tell anybody to have a ton of any specific thing,” says Dr. Ireton-Jones. ”I’d just advise that they add some fruit.”

Eating a food that acts as a natural laxative is a good thing if you’re blocked up. But it can also cause problems. Fructose and sorbitol have been linked to diarrhea in children, according to a 2020 paper, and pears contain both. And Harvard Medical School suggests that eating a lot of fructose — more than 40 to 80 grams per day — can lead to diarrhea in adults.

Plus, pears are considered a high-FODMAP food (or one that’s high in fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols) — and eating those kinds of foods may lead to gas, pain, and diarrhea in people with IBS, according to Monash University.

6. Pears Can Help Stabilize Blood Sugar

Pears are also one of the foods that can help balance blood sugar levels, which—although not a process that takes place directly in your digestive system—supports the health of your entire body. “Fruits and vegetables in general slow the digestive process, allowing insulin to manage blood sugars better,” Dr. Shetty says. “You won’t get an overload of excess sugar with pears.”

The Digestive Effect of Different Types of Pears

The nutritional benefits of fruit in general derive mostly from eating whole foods rather than canned, frozen, or dried. With pears, the digestive effects seem less influenced by the type of preparation — whether pears are ripe, unripe, or overripe or eaten raw, cooked, or juiced — than by the pear variety.

“The most important factors to consider are the type of pear and portion size,” Dr. Ivanina says. “For example, a prickly pear has more acceptable amounts of fructose and sorbitol. One entire pear has a lot of fructose and sorbitol, but having a teaspoon of pear would likely not cause any symptoms.”

That said, an ounce of pear juice can be good for constipation in very young children, according to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

When to Avoid Eating Pears

Certain people are more likely to develop gas, bloating, and stomach pain after eating fruit than others. Consider avoiding pears if you live with the following:

• Have fructose malabsorption: This is when your cells can’t absorb this particular sugar. This condition may affect up to one-third of people with IBS, according to the British Journal of Nutrition. In addition to fruits, many vegetables, wheat products, and sodas, as well as sweeteners like honey and agave nectar, contain fructose.
• Are on a low FODMAP diet (whether or not you have IBS): All of these compounds are highly fermentable sugars that produce a lot of gas if the small intestine has trouble absorbing them, Maples says. The FODMAP diet eliminates all foods containing these sugars and then slowly reintroduces each to identify which may be causing the irritation.
• Have inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) like Crohn’s disease or colitis: Pears and other foods with non-absorbable sugars like sorbitol can trigger flares in people who have IBD, a condition characterized by inflammation of the digestive tract.
• Are experiencing a diverticulitis flare: “We don’t recommend fresh fruits if a person with diverticulitis is having a flare, waiting to have surgery, or has just had surgery,” Dr. Ireton-Jones says. Canned pears and sauces are probably safe during this time, she adds. And fresh fruit can be added as the person recovers.

Experts recommend we eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day to reduce the risk of stroke, heart attack, and diabetes. Most pears are about one-and-a-half servings, says Dr. Ireton-Jones.

“Some people may have digestive challenges with certain fruits,” Dr. Ireton-Jones says. “But overall, all fruits are great.”