Health Articles, Health Blog

Common causes of Diarrhea

Posted: January 20th 2009 By editor1       under: Diarrhea    Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Diarrhea referred to a condition in which, you pass on loose semi-liquid stools more than two to three times in one day. You may also have abdominal pain, bloating, nausea and an uncontrollable bowel movement.

There are multiple causes of diarrhea that include microbes, prescribed medicines, food intolerance and some diseases that affect the digestive system and some unknown causes. Acute diarrhea is normal medical condition that every one of us has suffered in life at any stage. It usually lasts for one or two days and can be cured with little preventions, without the use of any special treatment. This type of diarrhea usually occurs due to food intolerance or bacteria.

Chronic diarrhea sometime indicates toward a serious chronic disease. Worst affect of diarrhea is dehydration. It’s a condition in which body doesn’t work properly due to the lack of fluids. Dehydration is too dangerous for kids and old people, and it needs an immediately response to avoid other health issue.

Although diarrhea is not a life threatening condition but it can turn into serious problem in the case of carelessness. You should consult to your doctor immediately if any of these symptoms is expressed: severe pain in your abdomen or rectum, high fever, blood in stool, persistent diarrhea for three days and dehydration.

Causes of diarrhea

Acute diarrhea has generally linked to a bacterial, parasitic infection, viral or food intolerance. Whereas chronic diarrhea has been associated with functional disorders for instance IBS (irritable bowel syndrome). A few causes of diarrhea, we come across in our daily life, include the following:

Bacterial Diarrhea

Several strains of bacteria consumed via contaminated food or water can cause diarrhea. Common bacteria, responsible for this disease include Salmonella species, Shigella, Campylobacter species, E. coli and anaerobic bacteria. Bacterial diarrhea is most common form in children. Its affects are vigorous and very quickly dehydrate the body.

Viral infections

Some virus also cause diarrhea, most renounced among them are Norwalk virus, rotavirus cytomegalovirus, herpes and some strains of viral hepatitis.

Food intolerance

Most of the people, due to their own internal mechanism are not able to digest certain food component such as artificial sweeteners and milk lactose and half cooked food. This type of diarrhea vanishes on its own or with mild over the counter product.

Parasites

Parasites may intrude through the contaminated food and water in the body. These parasites manage to adhere in the digestive tract. Parasites that are responsible for diarrhea include Entamoeba and Cryptosporidium.

Side effect of medicines

In children some oral antibiotics are given to treat pneumonia. In this situation macrolide group considered to be the most potent but it cause diarrhea so you can’t treat a child this drug especially when child suffer from both pneumonia and diarrhea. Some anti-hypertensive drugs, anti-cancer and most of the non-steroidal anti inflammatory drugs containing magnesium can cause diarrhea.

Intestinal diseases

Irritable bowel syndrom, colitis, Inflammatory bowel disease and celiac disease most of the time cause diarrhea.

In few people diarrhea develop after gastric bypass or after the gallbladder removal. The reason could be a change in movement of food in the gut or an increased amount of bile juice in the small intestine after cholecystectomy.

Related posts:

  1. Chronic Diarrhea
  2. Diarrhea in Children
  3. What is Diarrhea?
  4. Acute Diarrhea
  5. Symptoms Of Diarrhea

1 Users Response In " Common causes of Diarrhea "

Subscribes to this post Comments Feeds or leave a trackback
GG says
August 13th 2010 at 2:00 pm    

Radiation and having a portion of your colon can also cause a life long problem with diarrhea. I have to take a prescription and watch my food very carefully or I have a huge problem with diarrhea. I am a senior citizen and have had uterine cancer. The problem never happened until after I had my gall bladder out and then had to have part of my colon out too, then the problems began. I eat lots of bananas, blueberries, and white flour products. Wheat bread makes things worse so I avoid it. Certain vegetables do not cause problems for me such as fresh spinach which I make into a salad with blueberries. Zucchini has been good also. Its very difficult and you just have to experiment.

1 Pingback & Trackback On This Post

Post your Comment Here




Recent Posts

Trachoma – Causes, Symptoms and Treatment

Also mentioned in Corpus Hippocraticum by the father of methodical medicine, Hippocrates (5th century BC), Trachoma is a bacterial infection affecting the eye and possessing the po ...

Lower Left and Right Abdominal Pain – Causes and Treatment

The abdomen is sometimes referred as the ‘magic box’ by most medical practitioners. This name comes from the fact that any abdominal pain is difficult to be diagnosed. In most ...

Upper Left and Right Abdominal Pain – Causes and Treatment

An abdominal pain in any part can be excruciating or unbearable and tend to make the patient jump, shout or writhe in pain. The symptoms that are usually noticed along with abdomin ...