The science regarding gastric emptying is still evolving. And just because we don't understand all that we want to know, it doesn't mean we have to revert to astrology or supernatural explanations. And believe me, I don't even believe in astrology because I'm a Scorpio, which makes me naturally skeptical. But the point is that there's no final truth in science. Science is about discovering the truth and it's not that science changes its opinion, but rather science learns more and therefore can reveal more. Yet, I don't think anybody is satisfied with gastric emptying diseases as far as what we know. And despite gastric

emptying disorders being so frustrating for both patients and doctors, our knowledge actually is

slowly and progressively improving. In the last lecture, I addressed that chronic, too slow or too

fast gastric emptying raises numerous clinical problems.

And then I also noted that transient gastric emptying issues are sometimes part of a counter-regulatory

beneficial response.

So let's say you have acute hypoglycemia, it's beneficial that your body has a transient fast gastric

emptying to try and raise the blood sugar and likewise if you have hyperglycemia

it's understandable that there would be delayed gastric emptying to attempt to postpone

and then limit the height of a post-parandial hyperglycemic peak.

Meaning if your blood sugar is high, we don't want to release a lot of food into the

intestines and have even higher blood sugar.

So part of the human condition is that we can place blame on the wrong thing and have

resulting misplaced fears that arise.

It's easy to see that when we're looking in

retrospect. So, for example, you know, whatever. Humans fear the accused witches and not the

psychopaths hurting them alive at the stake. And likewise, it's not until recently that we are

starting to appreciate that we may have had a lot of misplaced blame for abdominal

symptoms on gastric emptying. There's no doubt that diabetics suffer a lot from upper abdominal

symptoms. There has to be etiologies and pathologies to cause those symptoms, but the question

is whether gastric emptying is the cause

or if it is, how often? Subjectively, I've seen diabetics get devices like gastric pacemakers

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