That pizza and interstitial cystitis
October 12, 2008 by Marijke Durning, RN
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
If you’ve got the munchies and crave a slice of pizza – you usually think twice about it if you have interstitial cystitis (Interstitial cystitis – little known but causes lots of pain). Interstitial cystitis is also called painful bladder syndrome.
One of the triggers of interstitial cystitis is spicy foods, along with caffeine, alcohol, citrus fruits, and tomatoes, but it was thought that the trigger was something in the chemicals in the urine that was produced after ingesting these foods. Now, researchers are thinking differently.
It may seem way out there, but the new theory is beginning to make sense. Although the information is from animal studies, the researchers are encouraged with what they have found, which is that it is the colon (bowels) that is the culprit, not the bladder.
According to a press release issued by Northwestern University:
People with interstitial cystitis have bladder nerves that are constantly transmitting pain signals to the spinal cord: a steady beep, beep, beep.
But when the colon is irritated by pepperoni pizza or another type of food, colon nerves also send a pain signal to the same area on the spinal chord. This new signal is the tipping point. It ratchets up the pain message to a chorus of BEEPEEPBEEPBEEP!
“It was known that there was cross talk between organs, but until now no one had applied the idea to how pain signals affect this real world disease, how the convergence of these two information streams could make these bladder symptoms worse,” said David Klump, principal investigator and assistant professor of urology and of microbiology-immunology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
While, right now, this doesn’t really help people with the problem, this type of finding can really help move research in the right direction.
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Image: MorgueFile.com
Tags: chronic pain blog, pain blog, interstitial cystitis, painful bladder syndrome
