The role of humoral factors in the dumping syndrome: experimentally induced dumping before and after portal systemic shunt.

Although most patients have a satisfactory permanent result following partial gastrectomy for peptic ulcer, some have severe and occasionally disabling postprandial distress, due mainly to the postgastrectomy dumping syndrome. Despite 50 years of extensive research the etiology of this syndrome is not fully understood, although recent evidence suggests that this is, at least in part, a chemically mediated phenomenon due to release of humoral factor(s) from the intestinal mucosa during stimulation by hyperosmotic material.Animal experiments which have yielded evidence in support of the humoral theory have been reported by several workers, but this communication is the first in which experimentally induced dumping has been reported in man before and after portal systemic shunt. The symptoms elicited add further support to the hypothesis that a humoral factor is responsible for initiation of the dumping syndrome.