Levin, B., Abraham, J. M., Burgess, E. A., and Waffis, P. G. (1970). Archives of Disease in Childhood, 45, 173. Congenital lactose malabsorption. A breastfed female infant is described who developed from the third day of life a severe watery diarrhoea, with weight loss. This ceased when lactose was omitted from the feeds and returned when it was resumed. Intolerance to this carbohydrate was con...

Bile acid malabsorption leads to chronic watery, non-bloody diarrhoea. Many patients present with symptoms suggestive of IBS. Idiopathic BAM (no obvious cause) occurs in both men and women, mostly between the ages of 30 and 70. There is often a long history of diarrhoea at the time of diagnosis, sometimes lasting longer than 10 years. The diarrhoea is continuous or intermittent; nocturnal diarr...

We read with interest the work by Jeppesen et al (1) examining the fatty acid content of plasma phospholipids in patients with malabsorption and patients receiving home parenteral nutrition (HPN). In that article, patients with fat malabsorption were subgrouped according to the severity of malabsorption (fat malabsorption ≤50% and fat malabsorption >50%), whereas patients receiving HPN were gro...