Intestinal Adaptation

The enerous length of the human small intestine —350 cm in life and 600 cm when relaxed after death —ensures a large functional reserve. After extensive small-bowel resection, however, many patients lose this reserve, and serious malabsorption and malnutrition may develop. The ultimate fate of such patients largely depends on the regenerative capacity of the residual intestine to compensate for the loss of absorptive surface produced by resection. A recent paper by Bury1 on carbohydrate absorption after massive small-bowel resection in the rat is one of a series of papers from several centers that examines this compensatory or adaptive ability . . .