notes by dr Claudio Italiano
How many times have you felt gas in your stomach and you felt yourself
stretch out your abdomen, just as advertising says. Fortunately, it is not
always about symptoms related to gastroenterological diseases (see also swollen
belly). More simply, it is a gastrointestinal syndrome characterized by
dyspepsia and intestinal gas; often connected with alvee tendentially
characterized by constipation and with colic pain in the right flank or pain in
the left iliac fossa.
Intestinal gas can derive from:
- Ingested air
- Gas from digestive processes
- Gas coming from exchanges with blood
- Gas from the metabolism of intestinal bacterial flora
The gaseous quantity of the intestine can undergo large fluctuations that can be
correlated with the peristaltic activity, with the diet and the trend of the
digestive processes. We already talked about the diet in irritable bowel
syndrome, in which the syndrome is always inadvisable:
Foods that produce gas
- Vegetables: onions, beans, celery, carrots, Brussels sprouts.
- milk and milk derivatives.
- Fruit: raisins, bananas, apricots and plum juice.
- Sweeteners (sorbitol, fructose, etc.)
- Marmalade
- Fruit: peaches, pears, plums
- Vegetables: cabbage, artichokes, spinach, onion, rocket, cucumber, celery
- Fibers and whole foods (in some subjects they improve the situation, in others
they make it worse)
- Spices
- Coffee, tea, Coca and caffeinated beverages
- Sodas.
During the use of antibiotics or in feverish states the gaseous contents of
the intestine increases or the peristalsis is slowed down and the putrefactive
phenomena prevail, especially if the food has been meat, while in the case of
vegetables, the fermentative flora prevails. Normally, during the day, we
produce from 1000-2000 cc of air to which is added the gas that flows from the
blood to the intestine. Obviously it is the bacteria that mainly produce
intestinal gases.
They consist of:
•Oxygen
• Hydrogen sulphide
• Box
• Hydrogen
• CO2
Flatulence can be accompanied by abdominal pain, which is perceived as the
sensation of a "something debated" in the bowels with pains that increase and
decrease in intensity, especially if the intestine is lazy and there is
constipation.
Aerofagia literally means "to eat air", or eructatio nervosa, is the excessive
swallowing of air, which is manifested in nervous and anxious people or in the
depressed, since air does not normally enter the esophagus and does not reach
the stomach normally. Excessive introduction of air, typically up to 1000-1200
cc per day causes swollen belly and abdominal tension, with dyspnea and chest
tightness (chest pain) that collects in the stomach: gastric bubble syndrome.
Sometimes even the air in the stomach from pains similar to anginal crises
(angina):
- Roehmeld-Ceconi syndrome: anginoid pain due to a considerable diaphragm lift
- Rosenbach syndrome: tachycardia and arrhythmia
- Visceral-cardiac or iat-coronary syndromes
The air will cause an eructation, ie noisy emission through the mouth of the
stomach gases that can be emitted under command, usually for self gratification!
However, if the stomach has functional problems such as gastric or gastric atony
and diaphragmatic hernia, then the belching may be the consequence of the
pathology, for gastric stasis and fermentation of food and the same applies to
the pyloric stenosis, ie in the narrowing of the pyloric valve of the stomach.
On the contrary, sometimes the air goes down lower, in the last tract of the
digestive tract, that is in the colon, where it can be blocked at the level of
splenic or hepatic flexure and give rise to the syndrome of hepatic and splenic
flexure, that is to intense pain that only defecation and the release of the air
can reduce.
To learn more about the topic of the relaxed abdomen:
Dispepsia
Ascite
Abdominal distension
Masse addominali
index of gastroenterology