Question

Please Help ... Would be greatly appreciated!!!
1. In recent times, more and more individuals have experienced digestive upsets. These are not necessarily due to the type and quantity of food ingested but rather to a change in their ability to digest food stuffs. More and more over the counter (OTC) products have become available to relieve the symptoms of digestional upset. List several factors which might contribute to a decrease in the ability to digest food, and speculate as to why these factors might have come to be. THANKS!!

Answer 1

I don't know where the fact that there are more upsets is coming from...sounds fishy to me.

Might just be that people have access to more effective stomach meds so they use them more. They were not so effective or cheap or available before or advertised as much. But I'm still not sure I buy that more people use them more often.

stomach bacteria and viruses and the types that contaminate food might be more resistant to some treatments...but that does not seem very common.

In fact since it was proved that stomach ulcers were caused by bacteria - ulcers are now very treatable and people don't have those as much. So it could be argued that stomach illnesses are decreasing or have decreased.

as for people not being able to digest some kinds of food...the ability to breakdown lactose is very regional...maybe they are referring to the fact that as societies are becoming more diverse there are more people that lack the genetic mutation necessary to digest lactose?

If you are thinking about how there seem to be more outbreaks of foodbourne illnesses - that seems like a combo of increased reporting and a decrease in governmental oversight and economic pressures to reduce costs.

Answer 2

Kantalope is absolutely correct.

Answer 3

Good answer but it may be a little subtler.

Many (possibly most) digestive processes in the gut are actually carried out not by our bodies but by the bacteria that live in the gut. There are certainly disease states associated with imbalances of native gut flora (as well as presence of strictly pathological strains) and these imbalances can be induced by broad spectrum antibiotics. A classic example is Clostridium difficile proliferation which causes pernicious bowel trouble, especially in otherwise weakened individuals like the chronically ill and the elderly...