There is an unseen and unrelenting force acting on your gut at this point, and it can cause severe irritation in some people.
No one really knows how or why irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) develops, but gastroenterologist Brennan Spiegel of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles outlined a weighty new hypothesis in 2022.
In his newspaper published in The American Journal of GastroenterologySpiegel argues that IBS is caused by the body’s inability to control gravity.
Our intestines, Spiegel explains, are like a big sack of potatoes that we have to lug around all our lives.
If our body’s usual management of gravity fails for any reason, our diaphragm can slip down and compress our intestines, potentially causing motility problems and bacterial overgrowth.
“Our nervous system has also evolved in a world of gravity, and that could explain why many people feel butterflies in their stomachs when they are anxious,” say Mirror.
“It’s curious that these ‘gut feelings’ also occur when we fall to earth, such as when we fall on a roller coaster or in a turbulent airplane. The nerves in the gut are like an old G-force detector that alerts us when we experience – or is about to experience — a dangerous fall. It’s just a hypothesis, but people with IBS may tend to overestimate G-force threats that never occur.”
The nice thing about Spiegel’s hypothesis is that it’s easy to test and doesn’t rule out other theories about IBS.
Currently, there is no definitive test for IBS and symptoms are highly variable from patient to patient. As a result, the syndrome is usually created as a diagnosis of exclusion.
Once other conditions that can cause intestinal symptoms — such as pain, bloating, cramping, constipation, or diarrhea — are ruled out, patients are usually told they have IBS.
Today, about 10 percent of people worldwide are believed to suffer from the syndrome, and Spiegel is one of many scientists trying to figure out why.
Gravity, he argues, could be the ground force that brings all these different symptoms together.
According to Spiegel’s framework, a disordered response to gravity can also cause a gut-brain interaction disorder. By squashing the gut, it can even affect the gut microbiome, causing hypersensitivity, inflammation or discomfort.
“There is such a variety of explanations that I wondered if they could all be true at the same time,” say Mirror.
“As I pondered every theory, from the one about motility to bacteria, to the neuropsychology of IBS, I realized that they could all point to gravity as a unifying factor. No doubt it seemed strange at first, but as I got into developed the idea and had colleagues implement it, it started to make sense.”
If IBS is caused by the body struggling with gravity, this could explain why physical therapy and exercise can be so beneficial in relieving symptoms.
It could also explain why serotonin tends to be elevated in IBS patients.
Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that is mainly produced in the gut to regulate our bowel movements and also our mood, but too much of it can cause diarrhea. It is also involved in the regulation of our blood pressure in response to gravity.
Without serotonin, Spiegel says, your body may not be able to get up, maintain balance, or circulate blood.
“Disregulated serotonin could be a form of gravity failure,” argues Mirror.
“When serotonin biology is abnormal, people can develop IBS, anxiety, depression, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue. These can be forms of gravity intolerance.”
Chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME) is another chronic and debilitating illness with no cause or cure, and it often intersects with IBS. Many CFS/ME patients also difficulty getting upwhich can cause a sudden drop in blood pressure, fatigue, dizziness and palpitations.
Other symptoms that progress to IBS include lower back pain, headache, dizziness, and postural tachycardia syndrome (POTS), which is when blood pressure drops after a person rises.
All of these conditions can be explained by the body’s inability to properly control gravity.
Without direct research, Spiegel says the gravity hypothesis is just a “thought experiment.” But he hopes it encourages new ways to research and treat IBS in the future.
“Our relationship to gravity is similar to fish’s relationship to water,” writes Mirror.
“We live in it all our lives, are shaped by it, but hardly notice its ever-present influence on the nature of our existence.”
Maybe it’s time we thought about it.
The study is published in The American Journal of Gastroenterology.
A version of this article was first published in December 2022.
