Steatorrhea (or steatorrhoea ) is the presence of excess fat in the feces. Dirt may be large and difficult to flush, has a pale and oily appearance and can be very foul smelling. Anal oily leakage or some degree of fecal incontinence may occur. There is an increase in fat excretion, which can be measured by determining the level of fat of the feces. The definition of how much fat fecal is steatorrhea has not been standardized.
Video Steatorrhea
Cause
Digestive disorders or absorption can cause fatty stools. Possible causes include exocrine insufficiency of the pancreas, with poor digestion due to lack of lipase, loss of bile salts, which reduces the formation of micelles, and small bowel disease that causes malabsorption. Various other causes include certain drugs that block the absorption of fat, or digested or excess oils/fats in the diet.
The absence of bile secretion may cause the stool to become gray or pale. Other features of fat malabsorption may also occur such as reduced bone density, vision difficulty under low light levels, bleeding, bruising and slow blood clotting time.
Related diseases
- The conditions that affect the pancreas. Pancreatic exocrine insufficiency can be caused by chronic pancreatitis, cystic fibrosis and pancreatic cancer (if this obstruction blocks the biliary flow).
- Conditions that affect bile salts. Bile duct obstruction by gallstones (choledocholithiasis), primary sclerosis cholangitis, liver damage (intrahepatic cholestasis), hypolipidemic drugs, or changes after gallbladder expulsion (cholecystectomy).
- Conditions that produce intestinal malabsorption. These include celiac disease, excessive bacterial growth, tropical canker sores, Giardiasis (parasitic protozoal infection), Zollinger-Ellison syndrome, short bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease and abetalipoproteinemia.
- Other causes. Drugs that can produce steatorrhea include orlistat, slimming pills, or as a bad effect of octreotide or lanreotide, are used to treat acromegaly or other neuroendocrine tumors. Can be found in Graves/hyperthyroidism disease.
Drugs
Orlistat (also known by the trade names Xenical and Alli) is a diet pill that works by blocking enzymes that digest fats. As a result, some fats can not be absorbed from the intestine and are excreted in stools rather than metabolically digested, sometimes causing anal oily leakage. Vytorin tablets (ezetimibe/simvastatin) can cause steatorrhea in some people.
Excess of whole beans in the diet
There are reports of anecdotes on the internet that explain the oily droplets in the stool after eating large quantities of cashews or other whole beans. They agree with studies showing that lipid stools are greatest when whole beans are eaten, compared to peanut butter, oil or flour and lipids from whole beans are significantly poorly absorbed.
Natural fats
Consuming jojoba oil has been documented to cause steatorrhea and anal leak because it can not be digested.
Consuming petroleum and fish oil (sometimes mislabelled as butterfish) will often lead to steatorrhea, also referred to as Gempylotoxism or Gempylid Fish Poisoning or keriorrhea. This fish is usually used in party catering because it feels soft and because it is cheap and available.
Artificial fats
Fat replacements Olestra, which is used to reduce the digestible fat in some foods, is reported to cause leakage to some consumers during the marketing-testing phase. Consequently, the product is reformulated before the general release to a non-liquid hydrogenated form at a physiological temperature. The US Food and Drug Administration warnings that excessive consumption of Olestra may cause "loose dirt"; However, this warning has not been necessary since 2003.
Maps Steatorrhea
Diagnosis
Steatorrhea should be suspected when large, floating and foul-smelling stools. Special tests are needed to confirm that these properties are actually due to excessive fat content. Fat in the stool can be measured for a prescribed time (often 5 days). Other tests include (13) C-mixed triglyceride and fecal elastase tests, to detect possible digestive disturbances due to exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, or specific tests to detect other causes of malabsorption such as celiac disease.
Treatment
Treatment mainly corrects the underlying cause, as well as digestive enzyme supplements.
See also
- Anal disposal
- Keriorrhea
- Fecal leakage
References
External links
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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