GI Motility

Gastrointestinal (GI) motility is how food moves through your GI tract. Motility means movement. Your GI tract is the long, continuous tube that your food travels through after you eat it. It’s made up of different organs connected together from end to end. Each plays its own part in digestion. Automatic muscle movements within each organ keep your food moving through the digestive process.

How does gastrointestinal (GI) motility work?

The organs in your GI tract are equipped with a special type of muscle tissue called smooth muscle. These muscles work automatically, without you thinking about them. They respond to signals from your autonomic nervous system. That’s the network of nerves that communicate between your brain and your internal organs. It governs all the automatic tasks that your internal organs do every day.

Digestion is one of those tasks. During digestion, each organ in your GI tract has a turn carrying your food. The muscles in the walls of each organ contract in a wavelike pattern to move food steadily forward. This is called peristalsis. Other muscles — called sphincters — act as the gatekeepers between organs. These muscles open to let food pass through from one organ to the next at the right time.

What body parts are involved in GI motility?

The organs involved in your gastrointestinal motility include your:

• Esophagus
• Stomach
• Small intestine
• Large intestine

Within these organs, important parts include your:

• Smooth muscles: These ensure food moves forward.
• Sphincters: These allow food to pass from one chamber to the next.
• Autonomic nervous system: Nerves tell your muscles when to do their jobs.

Disorders in any of these parts can cause problems with your GI motility.

What happens when GI motility doesn’t work right?

If the muscles in any part of your GI tract — or all of it — fail to do their jobs in a coordinated way, this leads to what we call motility disorders. Food and fluids might move too fast or too slow through your GI tract. Or they might fail to move from one chamber to the next when they’re supposed to. Some might stay behind. Some might drift into the wrong chamber if a sphincter fails to open or close properly.

What are symptoms of GI motility disorders?

GI motility disorders may cause:

• Difficulty swallowing
• Backwash or regurgitation
• Indigestion or heartburn
• Fullness and bloating
• Nausea and vomiting
• Constipation
• Diarrhea
• Difficulty pooping
• Difficulty holding in poop

What are common GI motility disorders?

Gastrointestinal diseases that relate to motility include:

• Esophageal motility disorders: These happen when the muscles in your esophagus don’t work as they should. Food and fluids may get stuck on the way down or come back up.
• Chronic acid reflux (GERD): If the sphincter at the lower end of your esophagus doesn’t function properly, stomach acid (and sometimes food) can backwash into your esophagus.
• Gastroparesis: This condition affects the nerves and/or muscles in your stomach, effectively paralyzing them. As a result, food may be slow to digest or leave your stomach.
• Dumping syndrome: This condition causes food to move too quickly from your stomach to your intestines. It involves a problem with the sphincter at the bottom of your stomach.
• Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS): This condition affects your intestines, making them move too much or too little. It causes chronic diarrhea or chronic constipation, or both.
• Intestinal pseudo-obstruction: This condition stops movement in one or both of your intestines. It feels like you have a physical obstruction blocking your bowels, but you don’t.
• Dyssynergic defecation (anismus): In this condition, the muscles that allow you to poop don’t work together as they should, making it difficult to move poop out of your rectum.
• Fecal incontinence: Passive incontinence happens when you poop unintentionally because the nerves and muscles that control your bowel movements aren’t communicating well.

What can I do to encourage healthy GI motility?

Sometimes, GI motility disorders have a deeper cause, like nerve or muscle damage from an injury or disease. But other times, temporary things cause them, like what you eat or the medicines you take. If you feel like your GI motility is too fast or too slow, you can start by making some simple lifestyle changes to see if this helps. If it doesn’t, visit your healthcare provider for testing and treatment.

Ways to stimulate (increase) GI motility include:

• Getting regular physical activity: Even walking can help if it’s consistent.
• Making sure you’re getting enough fiber in your diet: Supplements can also help.
• Making sure you’re drinking enough water: Add more water when you add more fiber.
• Reducing processed foods: High-fat content and refined starches slow digestion and motility.
• Trying home remedies for constipation: Coffee or senna can stimulate your bowels in a pinch.

Ways to slow (decrease) GI motility include:

• Quitting caffeine: Coffee is the biggest culprit, but other sources can also be overstimulating.
• Decreasing certain foods and drinks: This includes spicy foods, high-sugar foods (candies, desserts, sugar-sweetened beverages, artificial sweeteners) and alcohol.
• Trying peppermint tea or peppermint oil capsules: They can calm muscle contractions in your gut.
• Trying a diet to eliminate poorly absorbed carbohydrates: For example, a low-FODMAP diet.
• Trying the BRAT diet: Bananas, rice, applesauce and toast can settle an overactive gut.