Synergy Pharmaceuticals presented data finding chronic idiopathic constipation and irritable bowel syndrome with constipation were both linked to depressed uroguanylin levels in patients.
Researchers compared uroguanylin levels between 60 healthy patients and 107 patients with CIC and IBS-C. The patients fasted overnight and then ate a standardized 750-calorie meal. Researchers measured their uroguanylin before the meal and then at 30 minutes, 60 minutes and 90 minutes post-meal.
Here's what you should know:
1. Pro-uroguanylin levels were lower in the diseased patients than in healthy patients.
2. Mean pro-uroguanylin were more than 30 percent lower in diseased patients than in the healthy patients.
3. Diseased patients had lower circulating uroguanylin levels than their healthy counterparts at all times as well.
Researchers concluded, "These results suggest a novel pathophysiological hypothesis in which chronic constipation may reflect a paracrine hormone insufficiency of pro-uroguanylin in the small intestine. The correlative therapeutic hypothesis suggests that this pathophysiology can be reversed by oral supplementation with a uroguanylin analog such as plecanatide."
Note: Synergy developed plecanatide.