How and Why is Gastroenterology Important? – Dr. B Ravi Shankar

What is gastroenterology?

The gastrointestinal tract is as important as the brain and the heart. Gastroenterology is a study that involves the diseases of the stomach and intestines, and of course, there are other organs like the pancreas and liver.

What diseases does a gastroenterologist treat?

There are many diseases but let’s just concentrate on two very important organs that is the stomach and the colon. So we have diseases related to the stomach and diseases related to the colon. The colon otherwise is the large intestine. The symptoms mainly arise out of the diseases of these two organs in the stomach and colon.

What are the most common signs and symptoms of gastrointestinal disorders?

Many symptoms arising from other organs also mimic symptoms coming from the stomach or colon. Stomach symptoms are mainly abdominal pain, abdomen burning, vomiting, loss of appetite, or aversion to food. The colonic symptoms like bleeding from the rectum, loose stool, constipation or alternating constipation and loose stools, and also abdominal pain.

What are the common signs and symptoms of digestive disorders?

All these are the symptoms of digestive diseases. Some signs mean what a doctor examines and finds out are abdominal distention, abdominal mass, anaemia, jaundice, these are the signs of diseases of the abdomen.

Which are the diseases of digestive disorders?

The diseases that affect the digestive tract are stomach ulcers, tumors, acidity problems, otherwise called dyspeptic symptoms or dyspepsia the chronic diseases are usually GI bleeds, tumors,  irritable bowel syndrome, and inflammatory bowel diseases like ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease. There are other minor disorders like hemorrhoids, fissures so on and so forth.

What causes gastrointestinal disorders?

Problems related to the acidity that is mucosal diseases of the stomach due to higher acid levels or due to certain drugs cause acid peptic disorders. Also, mutagenesis occurs because in the layers of the stomach and gastrointestinal tract there is a rapid turnover of the cells. Based on this rapid turnover of the cells in the gastrointestinal tract tumors can arise and these tumors are distributed throughout the gastrointestinal tract but most commonly in the stomach and large intestine. So this needs to be tackled by proper study of symptoms, examination of the patient, and doing certain procedures like the endoscopy or colonoscopy.

Can stress cause gastrointestinal problems?

Stress can cause several problems and yes it can dissipate gastrointestinal problems as well. Mainly functional bowel diseases can aggravate the symptoms of organic diseases of the gastrointestinal tract.

Can gastrointestinal problems cause back pain?

Some disorders like pancreatitis can cause back pain because the pancreas is a posterior lying organ behind the stomach. The pain of pancreatitis graduates to the back and appears as back pain in 50% of the cases who have pancreatitis. Low back pain is associated with the disorders like irritable bowel syndrome and some conditions like inflammatory bowel disease where the joints are affected as the extra-intestinal manifestation. It is very important to diagnose gastrointestinal tract disorders because these diseases affect the quality of life, so some disorders are life-threatening like gastrointestinal tract bleeding and gastrointestinal tumors. All these require good care, like the bleeding gastrointestinal tract requires emergency care, and the tumors that are raised from the gastrointestinal tract require proper and quick diagnosis and then adequate treatment.