No doubt you have heard of Irritable Bowel Syndrome? It is the best known from this family of digestive diseases. This group of digestive diseases results in various degrees of impairment to the movement of food along the digestive track. What doctors call gastrointestinal motility problems. These spastic to paralytic disorders of gut function can affect any region of the gut and are caused by disordered function of the nerves lining the gut, or what doctors refer to as the "enteric" nervous system.

For many, through the years, they will wax and wane with symptoms. A smaller number may slowly progress to failing gut function -- so profound as to result in digestive failure. The symptoms experienced by the sufferer reflect the region of the gut that is affected and the diagnostic label given.

Gastroparesis (motor disorder of the stomach) is the most common of the severe digestive motility diseases.

The majority of those who suffer are young women and they develop these problems for unknown reasons. Initially, many are wrongly labeled with psychiatric or emotional stress disorders.

Treatments usually consist of special diets or feeding tubes, but some never recover.