To understand
colonic dysfunction it is important to understand how hollow viscous organs
function and understand Laplace Law (Basford, 2002). Nowhere else have these
principles being researched more than in the case of the heart. In other words,
to understand constipation, one must understand congestive heart failure. It is
well studied and researched that when the chambers of the heart dilate they
become less efficient in pushing the blood out of the heart. This concept stems
from Laplace Law, the principle of physics that states that pressure decreases
as distention occurs in the heart chambers. The same is applicable to the
colon, another hollow viscous organ. While colonic movement occurs once a day,
and heart movement occurs a hundred thousand times a day, the physiological
principles driving the movement do not change. Colonic movement is impacted in
the same way as the heart when excessive dilation of the hollow viscous organ
takes place. To move anything in the colon, a fixed amount of muscular pressure
has to be generated to cause the stool to be pushed forward. As the stool
starts collecting in the colon, the colon starts dilating which translates to
the thinning of the bowel wall. This leads to a thinned out muscle which is
unable to generate pressure to move the stool in the colon. Or in other words,
relatively the pressure generated by the thinned out muscle is incapable of
moving the total amount of stool present in the colon. Eventually the colonic
muscle fails, as the maximum amount of pressure it can generate does not move
the stool at all. This leads to colonic failure or as newly described in this
book “Congestive Colon Failure (CCF)”  |
 |
|