Functional dyspepsia linked to spleen deficiency syndrome

In this study, researchers from China evaluated the clinical characteristics of functional dyspepsia (FD) with spleen deficiency syndrome and the metabolic perturbations involved in the progression of FD. The results of their study were published in the journal Chinese Medicine.

• FD is a chronic disorder of the gastroduodenal region — one of the most prevalent gastrointestinal disorders worldwide.
• For their study, the researchers identified the clinical features of FD with spleen deficiency syndrome and combined them with metabolic biomarkers to facilitate clinical diagnosis for the disorder.
• To achieve this, they recruited 215 FD patients and 61 healthy volunteers and compared clinical characteristics and gastric emptying rate between the FD group and the healthy control (HC) group.
• They also performed a metabolomics analysis to determine the metabolic differences between the two groups.
• The researchers found that the FD with spleen deficiency group experienced more severe postprandial discomfort and delayed gastric emptying than the HC group. They identified decreased motilin as an independent risk factor for FD with spleen deficiency.
• They also identified 15 metabolites associated with FD with spleen deficiency and which were present in the FD group but not in the HC group. The majority of the biomarkers belonged to the glycerophospholipid metabolic pathway and all 15, together with motilin levels, can be used to diagnose FD with spleen deficiency.

Based on these results, the researchers concluded that spleen deficiency syndrome is associated with delayed gastric emptying and perturbations in the glycerophospholipid metabolic pathway experienced by FD patients. The metabolic biomarkers and clinical features they identified could be useful for the multidimensional diagnosis of FD.

Read the full article at this link.

Journal Reference:

Zhang J, Wang X, Shi X, Xie J, Zhang M, Ma J, Wang F, Tang X. COMBINATION OF 15 LIPID METABOLITES AND MOTILIN TO DIAGNOSE SPLEEN-DEFICIENCY FD. Chinese Medicine. 15 April 2019;14(1). DOI: 10.1186/s13020-019-0238-9