Quest Bars Cause Chest Pain
I love Quest Bars. They are delicious, chewy, and high in protein. I particularly loved the Chocolate Brownie flavour. In fact, I used to eat one or two a day as a way to get in some extra protien and satisfy my chocolate cravings. I did that for a few months and then I started getting chest pains.
At first, I thought the chest pains were caused stress from work because that is what if felt like - kinda shortness of breath combined with tension in the chest, particularly on the left side. So I dialled back my workload for a few weeks and started listening to relaxation/meditation stuff on my way to and from the office but nothing changed.
So I started thinking back to what I had changed recently that may be causing it. I generally eat a pretty clean diet, but I had started eating Quest Bars a few months previously. The ingredients looked ok (Protein Blend (Whey Protein Isolate, Milk Protein Isolate), Isomalto-Oligosaccharides* (Prebiotic Fiber) Almonds, Cocoa, Water) so it did not occur to me that they could be the problem, but on a whim I decided to cut them out for a week to see what happened. The chest pain disappeared after a few days.
I was surprised. So, being a person of scientific persuasian like this guy, I tried it again. I ate two Quest Bars about 24 hours apart, and about 6 hours after the second bar the chest pain came back. It lasted for 36-48 hours then disappeared again. I have repeated this a few times so I am certain that it is the Quest Bars are to blame.
Isomalto-Oligosaccharides was the only item on the ingredient list that concerned me. According to the Quest Nutrition website, Isomalto-Oligosaccharides are good for you. Even the Government of Canada has no objection to consuming 30g/day. Each Quest Bar has about 17g which makes my intake of my 2 bars/day just in excess of the Government’s recommendation, but 2g is splitting hairs. There’s also no warning on the box or the label that suggests limiting consumption in any way.
I have not found any other information about Quest Bars causing chest pain. Even the suspicious-sounding Isomalto-Oligosaccharides comes up clean on that front. There was a lot of discussion around whether it is truly fibre, or how much impact it has on blood-glucose levels, but no references to chest pain.
I’d love to hear from anyone else that has experienced similar symptoms.
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