Symptoms
- Frequent loose or watery stools.
- Abdominal cramps.
- Light-headedness due to dehydration.
What causes it?
- The infamous 24-hour bug that visits and traumatises schools, nursing homes and entire suburbs is either viral or bacterial in origin. Often accompanied by vomiting, this diarrhoea is usually done and dusted in a day.
- Food poisoning is mostly experienced roughly 4 hours after eating the offending meal.
- Unless you are the 5-star variety of tourist, travellers often experience diarrhoea, usually from E. coli bacteria that appear in different guises around the world. Our intestinal microflora might be used to ‘home-grown’ E. coli, but are xenophobic and less able to tolerate foreigners.
- Giardia and cryptosporidium are protozoa. They sometimes appear in our water supply and can also be contracted when travelling. Digestive complaints, including burping, bloating and nausea are symptoms alongside diarrhoea that suggest a protozoa infestation.
- An antibiotic’s job is to kill bacteria. Unfortunately, this will include some ‘good’ bacteria living in our intestines, as well as the intended bad guys. Disruption to intestinal microflora can cause diarrhoea.
- Excess alcohol places great strain on the body, particularly the liver, which may result in nausea and diarrhoea.
- Stress increases the output of the flight or fight hormone, adrenaline. This hormone, which increases the flow of blood to the muscles for the purposes of fleeing and fighting, is also the hormone that dilates the pupils and increases the heart rate. In this world of fear, digesting food is of little importance. The very frightened animal (or human) will defecate on the spot. Ongoing stress can result in chronic diarrhoea.
- Certain artificial sweeteners and artificial fats are chemically designed not to be absorbed across the intestine. Due to osmosis, where fluid enters from the bloodstream into the bowel, a common side effect is diarrhoea and also what is known as ‘faecal leakage’.
- Diarrhoea may be the result of a food sensitivity, in particular lactose and gluten intolerance.
- Diarrhoea is a common symptom of inflammatory bowel disease including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
- Large doses of vitamin C can cause a bout of diarrhoea. As soon as you have a loose bowel movement, you know you’ve reached your ‘bowel tolerance’ and the tissues are saturated with vitamin C. For most people, this occurs after taking 15 g (15 000 mg) in a 24-hour period, but some people are more sensitive and react sooner.
- Long-term or chronic diarrhoea may be caused by a variety of factors including irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), thyroid problems, cancer or a reaction to medications. The reason for diarrhoea should always be found and treated appropriately.
What to do
Long-term or chronic diarrhoea can be treated in a similar way to an acute episode, however, the cause must be found and treated.
Lactose intolerance, the inability to tolerate milk sugar, often occurs after a longish bout of diarrhoea. Normally, resident bacteria (of the lactobacillus family) produce lactase, the enzyme that digests lactose. During the digestive mayhem of diarrhoea, these lactase-producing bacteria can be wiped or washed out, leaving you unable to digest lactose and causing the symptoms of diarrhoea and bloating all over again. With time, the lactase-producing bacteria will recolonise, especially after some judicious probiotic consumption.
