The presence of digestive gas in the abdomen is physiological, as is the need for expulsion, emitting air from both the upper (belching) and lower parts (flatulence).
When gas finds impediments to its passage and does not easily transit through the gastrointestinal tract, it can cause colicky pain, especially in cases of obstruction.
Disorders such as meteorism, stomach bloating, or flatulence can result from foods that promote gas production, or from bad behavioral habits such as eating meals quickly or voraciously, but they can sometimes be the symptoms proper to certain diseases such as those listed.
Gastritis:
Gastritis is aninflammation of the gastric mucosa, which can be acute or chronic. Acute gastritis is characterized by erosive lesions, and there are silent and sudden onset forms. In chronic gastritis, however, the erosive component is missing, but we find the infiltrates typical of chronic inflammation.
Chronic gastritis, moreover, is divided into two types:
- Type A rarer, autoimmune-based that results in the production of autoantibodies against parietal cells of the stomach.
- Type B generally sustained byhelicobacter pylori.
Irritable bowel syndrome:
Irritable bowel syndrome is a widespread disorder affecting theintestines.
It is not an isolated or occasional disorder but rather a type of chronic condition that affects the patient over time and must be treated with a series of precautions and care.
The symptoms are usually not very intense and therefore manageable with appropriate preventive measures of lifestyle and diet.
Symptoms are different and varied depending on who is affected, but abdominal pain, cramping , and bloating are generally reported among them, sometimes alternating with discharges of diarrhea or difficulty evacuating from constipation.
These symptoms may occur for a long period or disappear altogether for another.
Dyspepsia
Dyspepsia is characterized by the presence of localized pain in theupper abdomen. It can be: organic or functional.
Functional dyspepsia can be classified into:
- Ulcer-like dyspepsia, the main symptom of which is epigastric pain that often decreases with food intake; in fact, the pain appears more often on an empty stomach.
- Motor dyspepsia-like dysfunctional dyspepsia, the main symptom of which is chronic abdominal discomfort often aggravated by meal intake.
- Non-specific dyspepsia, through which the symptom pattern does not meet the criteria for either of the previous two groups.
Nutrition and dyspepsia
Abdominal complaints and postprandial onset include epigastric pain, early satiety, heartburn, nausea, vomiting, headache, and drowsiness. Dietary adjustments are related to the prevailing type of symptomatology.
Gastroesophageal reflux
Gastroesophageal reflux disease (MRGE) consists of a pronounced rise of some of the acidic contents of the stomach to the esophagus, promoted by a poor seal or increased frequency of opening of the cardia, the valve that separates the two organs and is supposed to prevent food from rising upward after being swallowed.
Disturbances caused by reflux disease can extend to affect the esophagus, bronchi, vocal cords and throat due to the action of stomach acids carried by regurgitations.
Treatment involves an indicated diet to prevent regurgitation and gastroprotective drugs to defend the irritated gastric mucosa.
Chronic inflammatory bowel disease
This term is used to refer to pathological conditions characterized by a chronic inflammatory process, affecting one or more parts of the intestine. The most important diseases are: Krohn’s disease and ulcerative rectocolitis.
Chron’s disease
It can affect any part of the alimentary canal, and lesions affect all layers of the intestinal wall. The disease affects young people, manifesting as chronic intermittent diarrhea, abdominal pain, and weight loss. The disease can be fistulizing or stenosing and often extends to the mesentery and lymph nodes.
Ulcerative rectocolitis
The lesions of the disease are confined to the mucosa and are characterized by bleeding. They first affect the rectum until they affect the entire colon. Erectal bleeding is the most constant symptom and the course is chronic-intermittent.
Celiac disease
Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease that can occur in genetically predisposed people in whom theingestion of gluten results in damage to the small intestine. When people with celiac disease ingest gluten-protein found in certain grains such as wheat, rye and barley, an abnormal immune response is triggered in their bodies, which damages the villi of the small intestine-extroversions of the intestinal mucosa that allow for increased organ surface area, which is useful for increasing the absorption of ingested nutrients.
Treatment involves a diet with total exclusion of gluten and its traces, and if necessary, medications to counteract intestinal inflammation.
Disorders povenienti by these conditions should be investigated both at the level of laboratory tests and diagnostic imaging techniques, of course under the guidance of one’s treating physician.
