Encyclopedia of Diets - A Guide to Health and Nutrition

McGraw, Phillip C.The Ultimate Weight Solution Cook
Book.The Free Press, 2004.
McGraw, Phillip C.The Ultimate Weight Solution Food
Guide.Pocket Books, 2005.

ORGANIZATIONS
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Teresa G. Odle

DRIsseeDietary Reference Intakes

Dyspepsia
Definition
Dyspepsia is gastric upset due to the inability to
digest one’s food.

Origins
Dyspepsia is a word that has been used in English
since the early eighteenth century not only for a variety
of stomach ailments but also for bad moods or temper
outbursts that were thought to be caused by indiges-
tion. The English word comes from two Greek words
meaning ‘‘hard or difficult’’ and ‘‘digestion.’’ For
many years dyspepsia was a catchall term for any
kind of stomach upset characterized by burning, nau-
seous, or gassy sensations in the upper abdomen. Sev-
eral phrases that are still used almost interchangeably
for the condition are gastric indigestion, nervous dys-
pepsia, and impaired gastric function.

Dyspepsia was not defined more closely until the
mid-1980s, when an international group of gastroen-
terologists (doctors who specialize in treating disor-
ders of the digestive system) met in Rome to create a
set of criteria for distinguishing dyspepsia from other
disorders of the upper digestive tract (known as the
Rome criteria); and to distinguish between organic
dyspepsia—stomach upset that can be shown to have
a physical cause (for example, stomach irritation
caused byalcohol consumption), and functional dys-
pepsia (FD)—dyspepsia that cannot be traced to any
specific physical cause. FD accounts for a majority of
cases of dyspepsia, as many as 60% in some studies,
and for 30–50% of all referrals from primary care
doctors to gastroenterologists.

Dyspepsia is considered a difficult condition to
treat, even though it is widespread in the general pop-
ulation. An estimated 25–40% of adolescents and

adults in North America experience dyspepsia each

year. Most people with the disorder do not seek med-

ical treatment because it may be intermittent as well as

persistent. FD is responsible for high health care costs

in terms of prescription as well as over-the-counter

medications, diagnostic tests, and time lost from work.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,

FD was commonly treated with various forms of diet-

ary therapies. Treatments commonly recommended by

doctors in the 1920s included vegetarian diets as well as

the use of laxatives and enemas to cure the patient of

autointoxication—an imaginary disorder that origi-

nated in ancient Egypt and is based on the belief that

the contents of the colon are toxic and capable of

poisoning other body organs. Folk dietary remedies

for dyspepsia included drinking peppermint tea or

milk, eating spearmint leaves, or chewing mint-flavored

chewing gum, which first became popular in the 1860s.

Although FD is not fully understood, there are

several theories regarding its underlying mechanisms

or possible causes:

FD reflects greater than average sensitivity to uncom-

fortable sensations in the digestive tract. This theory

A false-color gamma scan of a human stomach with

dyspepsia, or indigestion, during tests to study its rate of

emptying.(Photograph by Jean-Perrin, Custom Medical Stock

Photo, Inc. Reproduced by permission.)

Dyspepsia