Role in Disease
In hypochlorhydria and achlorhydria, there is low or no gastric acid in the stomach, potentially leading to problems as the disinfectant properties of the gastric lumen are decreased. In such conditions, there is greater risk of infections of the digestive tract (such as infection with Vibrio or Helicobacter bacteria).
In Zollinger–Ellison syndrome and hypercalcemia, there are increased gastrin levels, leading to excess gastric acid production, which can cause gastric ulcers.
In diseases featuring excess vomiting, patients develop hypochloremic metabolic alkalosis (decreased blood acidity by H+ and chlorine depletion).
Read more about this topic: Gastric Acid
Famous quotes containing the words role and/or disease:
“Totalitarianism is never content to rule by external means, namely, through the state and a machinery of violence; thanks to its peculiar ideology and the role assigned to it in this apparatus of coercion, totalitarianism has discovered a means of dominating and terrorizing human beings from within.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“‘Tis the common disease of all your musicians that they know no mean, to be entreated, either to begin or end.”
—Ben Jonson (c. 1572–1637)