Will there ever be a cure for chronic nausea? - Daily Mail

Experts say that for many people living with long-term conditions, the nausea this causes can be the worst part of their illness.

‘It is so debilitating that it stops people living their daily lives,’ says Gareth Sanger, a professor of neuropharmacology at the Blizard Institute at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry. .

Experts say that for many people living with long-term conditions, the nausea this causes can be the worst part of their illness.

But it can also be a long-term effect of the winter vomiting virus and, more surprisingly, is linked to anxiety and depression — with at least one study suggesting that these conditions are such common triggers that patients should be checked for them before being sent for invasive tests for possible gastric causes.

Research published in General Hospital Psychiatry in 2002 found that patients with anxiety are three times more likely to suffer long-term nausea than people without the condition. .

Yet precisely because chronic nausea can be linked to psychological factors, it is sometimes not rigorously investigated, says Peter Whorwell, a gastroenterologist at the Wythenshawe Hospital and professor of medicine at the University of Manchester.

Professor Catherine Williamson from King’s College London, who led the latest HG study, says there is an ‘urgent need’ for further research into its causes.

The problem is that scientists still know very little about what actually causes nausea, says Professor Sanger.

‘We thought that if we stopped the vomiting, then nausea would also be stopped,’ says Professor Sanger.

‘Without treatment they can die, as the repeated vomiting can deplete their levels of electrolytes [salts and minerals], and if potassium levels in particular drop too much your heart stops,’ says Professor Whorwell.

Professor Sanger is leading a team that is studying whether nerve-related disruptions in the way the stomach contracts to digest food may cause chronic nausea in some people with upper-gut disorders, such as gastroparesis, a rare condition where the stomach doesn’t empty properly.

The winter vomiting bug — norovirus — can also cause this stomach-paralysing effect and long-term symptoms in some people, he says.

‘The first thing that happens is your stomach stops emptying so well — it’s the virus’s way of trying to stay in the body as long as possible — and some people develop persistent symptoms,’ says Professor Whorwell.

The difficulty in developing new treatments for nausea and vomiting is ‘compounded by the fact that the lab creatures most used for drug development — mice and rats — have evolved not to vomit,’ says Professor Sanger.