+- Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum (https://www.scivillage.com)
+-- Forum: Culture (https://www.scivillage.com/forum-49.html)
+--- Forum: Fitness & Mental Health (https://www.scivillage.com/forum-85.html)
+--- Thread: Wild new hypothesis suggests IBS could be a form of 'gravity intolerance' (/thread-13282.html)
Wild new hypothesis suggests IBS could be a form of 'gravity intolerance' - C C - Dec 2, 2022
https://www.sciencealert.com/wild-new-hypothesis-suggests-ibs-could-be-a-form-of-gravity-intolerance
INTRO: There's an invisible and relentless force acting on your bowels right now, and it might be causing some people serious irritation. No one really knows how or why irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) develops, but gastroenterologist Brennan Spiegel from Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles has outlined a weighty new hypothesis.
In a paper published in The American Journal of Gastroenterology, Spiegel argues IBS is triggered by the body's inability to manage gravity.
Our bowels, Spiegel explains, are like a big sack of potatoes that we have to carry around our whole lives. If our body's usual management of gravity fails for whatever reason, our diaphragm can slip down and compress our intestines, possibly causing motility issues and bacterial overgrowth.
"Our nervous system also evolved in a world of gravity, and that might explain why many people feel abdominal 'butterflies' when anxious," says Spiegel. "It's curious that these 'gut feelings' also occur when falling toward Earth, like when dropping on a roller coaster or in a turbulent airplane. The nerves in the gut are like an ancient G-force detector that warns us when we're experiencing – or about to experience – a dangerous fall. It's just a hypothesis, but people with IBS might be prone to over-predicting G-force threats that never occur."
The nice part about Spiegel's hypothesis is that it's easily testable and doesn't exclude other theories of IBS.
Currently, there is no definitive test for IBS, and its symptoms are extremely variable from patient to patient. As a result, the syndrome is usually made as a diagnosis of exclusion. Once other disorders that can cause gut symptoms – such as pain, bloating, cramping, constipation, or diarrhea – have been ruled out, patients are usually told they have IBS.
Today, about 10 percent of people worldwide are thought to suffer from the syndrome, and Spiegel is one of many scientists working to figure out why... (MORE - details)