7 Common Digestive Problems and How to Manage Them
Dealing with stomach pain, ulcers, reflux, constipation, Crohn's disease, and more.
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Digestive Disorders
Gastrointestinal disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome, gallstones, and ulcers can be painful, stressful, and embarrassing. But you're not alone-these diseases affect millions of people. Meet some of them here.
Crohn's Disease
Crohn's disease appears to be caused by an abnormal inflammatory response: Researchers hypothesize that the immune system overreacts in response to an allergen, a bacteria or virus, a genetic reaction, or a defective signal from the body's own cells, and causes inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract.
Gallstone Disease
The vast majority of people with gallstones don't have symptoms or need medical attention. Enough Americans do, however, that the cost of treating them hits about $5 billion yearly. Some 800,000 operations are performed annually to treat gallstones.
GERD
The central cause of reflux is a weak barrier between the esophagus and stomach. The muscle ring at the junction of the stomach and the esophagus—the lower esophageal sphincter—relaxes or fails to close properly under pressure from stomach contents, which leak backwards.
Hemochromatosis
Hemochromatosis is an inherited metabolic disorder that causes the body to absorb too much iron. It is the most common hereditary disorder in the United States. The overload of iron accumulates and can cause life-threatening conditions, including cirrhosis, liver cancer, diabetes, and heart failure.
Irritable Bowel Syndrome
A person with irritable bowel syndrome—also called nervous or spastic colon—has a colon that appears to be normal, but it just doesn't work right. Symptoms include, abdominal pain, gassiness, a feeling of being bloated, and constipation or diarrhea.
Peptic Ulcer
Most peptic ulcers will heal if the body's production of stomach acid can be adequately suppressed, or, when the cause is an H. pylori infection, if the infection is treated and wiped out. Otherwise, peptic ulcers will regularly recur.
Ulcerative Colitis
The cause of ulcerative colitis remains unknown, but in theory, the immune system in the mucosa of the large intestine may be triggered by the many antigens from food products and billions of bacteria that live there. Any of these might cause the release of proteins that brings inflammatory cells to the colon lining.
