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ERIC E. WOLLAEGER, MD; HAROLD H. SCUDAMORE, MD

Arch Intern Med. 1964;113(6):819-825.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Since the small intestine is the major site of digestion of fat and the only segment of the gastrointestinal tract from which fat is absorbed, the occurrence of steatorrhea invariably denotes the existence of disease affecting this organ. It means either that the small bowel itself is involved or else it is being secondarily affected by abnormalities of other organs of digestion, such as the stomach, the hepatobiliary tract, or the pancreas.

Because steatorrhea always indicates the presence of an organic abnormality, the detection of even small degrees of it may have considerable diagnostic importance. Furthermore, the failure to assimilate fat normally often is associated with impaired absorption of other dietary constituents (particularly proteins, minerals, and vitamins), which may produce deficiency states of much greater clinical significance than the steatorrhea itself. Thus, the recognition of a mild impairment of absorption of fat may lead to the detection of critical deficiencies . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
ROCHESTER, MINN

Section of Medicine, Mayo Clinic and Mayo Foundation.

Footnotes
Received for publication Oct 10, 1963; accepted Nov 29.

Read before the Section on Gastroenterology and Proctology at the 112th Annual Meeting of the American Medical Association, Atlantic City, NJ, June 18, 1963.

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