Gastroparesis: Causes, risk factors and prevention

Gastroparesis, which is also named delayed gastric emptying, is a disorder in which it takes much longer than usually for your stomach to empty its contents. The symptoms of gastroparesis are certainly not pleasant and if you think you have it, it's important to know how to react. First, you'll need a basic rundown of what gastroparesis even is.

Well, a healthy stomach has strong muscular contractions that are pushing food on its long and convoluted journey through the digestive tract. Healthy stomachs will have no trouble at all doing this. In people with Gastroparesis, however, the muscles located in the stomach wall will work very poorly or, in some cases, not at all, this is preventing the stomach from emptying its contents properly.

The bad news is that there are currently no available treatments that are able to completely cure gastroparesis. However, the good news is that there are fortunately some dietary changes and certain medications that can sometimes help control the symptoms of gastroparesis.

Let's take a look at what you'll need to know about gastroparesis and what you can do to control the symptoms.

Stomach anatomy and physiology

The stomach is a hollow organ composed primarily of muscle whose role is to storage food. It consists of two parts:
 

• The upper portion is called the fundus which is where swallowed food and liquid collect.
• The lower portion is called the antrum. This is the stomach grinder.

In healthy individuals the food in the stomach is ground into tiny pieces by the constant churning that is generated by the contractions of the stomach’s muscles. After that it is slowly emptied from the stomach into the intestine. Only food which is ground into small particles can be emptied from the stomach because smaller particles are much better digested in the intestine. The ground food coming from the stomach is being well-mixed with the digestive juices of the intestine, pancreas, and liver (bile) and is easily absorbed from the intestine.

It is clear that, when the stomach’s muscles are paralyzed, food is not thoroughly ground and does not empty into the intestine properly. The condition may cause the delayed emptying of solid food, solid and liquid food, or liquid food alone.