You Don't Actually Need a Stomach to Live

 For most humans, the stomach holds a prominent place in their thoughts. Some jokingly "live to eat" or "think with their stomachs". But surprisingly, for an organ that seems so integral to our daily lives, many people get along just fine without one.

The most common reason to lack a stomach is an unfortunate one: gastric cancer. More than 21,000 new cases are diagnosed annually in the United States, and it's the fourth-leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide. Partial or total gastrectomy (removal of the stomach) is the best available intervention. Surgeons cut out the organ then attach the small intestine straight to the esophagus. About a third to one-half of gastric cancer patients undergoing the procedure can expect to live for five years or more before their cancer returns.

When it comes to the process of digestion, the stomach is more of a storage and partitioning center than an actual digester – it holds, churns, and breaks down food, then releases it in a controlled manner into the small intestine where heavier digestion and nutrient absorption takes place. Essentially, the stomach allows us to eat gobs of food in one sitting – a nice feature to have, but not actually necessary.

While people who lack a stomach can eat pretty normally and maintain an active lifestyle, they do have to be more mindful of how they eat, balancing food intake across six to eight smaller meals and consciously chewing their food to ease digestion in the small intestine. Doctors recommend consuming nutrient- and calorie-dense foods.

Life without a stomach takes some getting used to. Patients generally stay in the hospital for about one to two weeks after a gastrectomy, receiving nutrition intravenously or through a stomach tube. Then, despite generally not feeling hungry, they have to learn how to eat again. Unfortunately, high-fiber foods are off the menu at first, as they can make gastrectomy patients uncomfortably full. (This gets better over time.) Sugar and starch intake must also be minimized, albeit for the long-term, as the small intestine has to pull in as much as three pints of extra water – mostly from blood – to break down the carbohydrates. This can cause a sudden drop in blood pressure, along with other disconcerting symptoms such as bloating, nausea, diarrhea, faintness, and a cacophony of noise from the belly.

Studies have generally found that the first three months after losing one's stomach can be pretty miserable, but as patients learn to adapt to their new eating normal, and return to their pre-surgery activities, things bet much better. After one to two years of living without a stomach, patients' health-related quality of life matches or even exceeds their scores before the operation,.

It's a truly remarkable outcome after such a monumental procedure, providing proof that one can indeed live a good life without a stomach in the wake of a life-changing cancer diagnosis.

https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2022/08/20/you_dont_actually_need_a_stomach_to_live_848147.html