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One in 10 People Frequently Experience Abdominal Pain When They Eat Meals:
Around 11% of the global population (13% of women and 9% of men) frequently experience abdominal pain when they eat meals, according to a survey on over 50,000 people. The research is being presented for the first time today at UEG Week Virtual 2021.[1]
Pain associated with eating appears to be most common in young people aged 18 to 28, with 15% affected, the research found.
Those who experienced frequent abdominal meal-related pain were also more likely to suffer from bloating, a swollen tummy, feeling too full after eating or feeling full up too quickly, constipation and diarrhoea. The same group also had more severe psychological distress and somatic symptoms (that were not gastrointestinal).
A total of 36% of the people with frequent meal-related pain reported suffered from anxiety compared with 25% in the occasional symptoms group and 18 % in those who never experienced meal-related pain. Those with frequent attacks also reported higher rates of depression (35%) compared to 24% in the occasional symptom group and 17% in the group that never had meal-related pain.
Based on the Rome Foundation Global Epidemiology study, the findings were a result of surveying 54,127 people across 26 countries online.
[...] Esther Colomier, study author and a joint PhD researcher at KU Leuven, Belgium, and the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, explained, “The take home message from this study is that people who experience meal-related abdominal pain more frequently experience other gastrointestinal symptoms and more regularly fulfil criteria for disorders of the gut brain interactions (DGBIs, formerly known as functional gut disorders), including common conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), bloating and abdominal distension.”
“They also have a higher burden of psychological and somatic symptoms, such as back pain or shortness of breath, which are associated with major distress and functioning problems. These symptoms cause distress and disruption in daily life”, she added.
Journal Reference:
Ami D. Sperber, Shrikant I. Bangdiwala, Douglas A. Drossman, et al. Worldwide Prevalence and Burden of Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders, Results of Rome Foundation Global Study - PubMed, Gastroenterology (DOI: 10.1053/j.gastro.2020.04.014)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @06:52PM (4 children)
This used to be me. Growing up, I would frequently get bloated, gassy, and intense waves of abdominal pain after eating, usually dinner. It was bad to the point that I would lie face-first on a couch for 10-15 minutes, which I found was the best way to ease through the most intense pain until I could function again. This got me in trouble frequently for shirking my chores, which involved cleaning up the dining room and doing the dishes ... but it helped me cope. I also often had diarrhea, which usually signaled the end of that session of GI pain, maybe an hour after eating. Keep in mind, I was a scrawny kid, skinny as a pole, moderately active (I had friends, we rode bikes, climbed trees, did normal kid stuff), and we ate relatively healthy food: venison, beef, fruit & veggies, had our own garden, etc. Didn't do much processed sugar or candy either - my mother saw to that!
We were lower-middle class, just above working poor, no insurance to speak of - so going to a doc wasn't an option. I just lived with it from about the age of 9-10 through about 15, then it started to become less frequent. A few years later, as a young adult, it started happening more often again. I can blame this on definitely eating junk food -- if I ate healthy, it would be less often but wouldn't go completely away.
Then, I started working out. HIIT (crossfit mostly) for 20-40 minutes per day. Later on I would run (not jog!) 2-3 miles per day at a ~6.5 minute pace. And when I exercised, I found my stomach became iron: I could eat anything I wanted, as much as I wanted, zero gastrointenstinal side effects. When I slacked off on workouts, I could coast for a week or two, but inevitably the GI side effects would start coming back. Stomach-aches and diarrhea again. But if I went back to high-intensity workouts, it was like flipping a switch: GI side effects were gone in a day. It's been more-or-less consistent like that for the past dozen years.
So my advice: exercise! Turns out it helps in all sorts of ways.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @07:54PM
Sounds like you might have a physical issue with your intestines that keeps food from moving through properly and intense workouts cause enough contractions to accelerate the process. People with allergies and sensitivies can not solve their problems with exercise, though if they are lacking exercise it would likely help.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @09:47PM (2 children)
I mentioned this up-thread, but my problem was constipation. If you're not getting enough fiber, instead of having 1-2 days' worth of meals moving through your digestive system you can have 2-5, or more. You'll still poop, maybe even more than once per day, but you'll have tiredness and frequent stomach aches. When I get into that state, two or three weeks of a high produce diet fixes it, and it stays fixed until I backslide on my diet.
Of course, the exercise is good for you no matter what. But if you're too sick or too busy to work out, boost your produce intake. I have four kids and my wife and one of my daughters have serious medical problems, so aside from a few pushups and squats here and there I don't get to exercise as I would like.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 06 2021, @03:30AM (1 child)
Humans didn't evolve to just eat a lot of fibrous foods, they also did a lot of walking. Sedentary cultures are a recent phenomenon. It's not hard to see a link between proper digestion and exercise as well as fiber, but given the large range of human diets without epidemic-level gastrointestinal issues, not hard to assume that fiber doesn't matter for everyone, and that exercise is likely to be more universal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 06 2021, @08:06PM
We're both just speculating, but as long as gastrointestinal issues don't kill you, they wouldn't stop you from living long enough to reproduce. Sedentary lifestyles are an invention of recent civilization, but even low fiber diets are only 10,000 years old - that's not long on an evolutionary scale.