🥚 Gastrointestinal🟢 BasicMalabsorption

Malabsorption Syndromes

Conditions in which the gut fails to absorb nutrients properly, leading to weight loss, bulky stools and deficiencies.

Key points

Malabsorption is a failure to absorb nutrients from the gut, from problems in digesting food or in the gut wall taking it up.
It causes bulky, pale, greasy stools that float and are hard to flush (steatorrhoea), with weight loss and tiredness.
Coeliac disease, an immune reaction to gluten that flattens the gut lining, is a common cause.
Other causes include chronic pancreatic disease (poor digestion), and infections or surgery affecting the small bowel.
The lack of absorbed nutrients leads to specific deficiencies, such as anaemia and thin bones.

Memory trick

Malabsorption is a gut that fails to absorb nutrients: greasy, floating, foul stools (steatorrhoea), weight loss, deficiencies; causes are coeliac disease (gluten), pancreatic disease and small-bowel disease; leads to anaemia and thin bones.

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🥚 Gastrointestinal🟢 BasicMalabsorption

Malabsorption Syndromes

Conditions in which the gut fails to absorb nutrients properly, leading to weight loss, bulky stools and deficiencies.

Key points

Malabsorption is a failure to absorb nutrients from the gut, from problems in digesting food or in the gut wall taking it up.
It causes bulky, pale, greasy stools that float and are hard to flush (steatorrhoea), with weight loss and tiredness.
Coeliac disease, an immune reaction to gluten that flattens the gut lining, is a common cause.
Other causes include chronic pancreatic disease (poor digestion), and infections or surgery affecting the small bowel.
The lack of absorbed nutrients leads to specific deficiencies, such as anaemia and thin bones.

Memory trick

All of General Medicine More Gastrointestinal