When I call up the NIH to check on my grants, I become painfully aware of the influence the brain can have on the gut. So Gershon refers patients to his colleague Joe Sweeting at Columbia's new Center for Intestinal Dysfunction. Occasionally, however, a wicked sense of humor threatens to overwhelm him after reading hundreds of letters about bowel problems. One woman called me saying, 'Doctor, you've just got to do something for me. I've been full of gas for 40 years.
Desperate people are out there.
Drugs to treat the psychoses of the brain in the bowel will soon be forthcoming. We are beginning to realize that research on how the mind makes the gut go wrong may have been misdirected. The bowel may not misbehave because a person is crazy, but a misbehaving bowel can drive anyone mad. That's one reason why these disorders have been frustrating for patients and difficult for doctors to pin down. Take ulcers, for example.