Severe cases ("fecal impaction" or malignant constipation) may exhibit symptoms of bowel obstruction (nausea, vomiting, tender abdomen) and encopresis, where soft stool from the small intestine bypasses the mass of impacted fecal matter in the colon. Epidemiology
Constipation is the most common chronic gastrointestinal disorder in adults. Depending on the definition employed, it occurs in 2% to 20% of the population. It is more common in women, the elderly and children. Specifically constipation with no known cause affects females more often affected than males. The reasons it occurs more frequently in the elderly is felt to be due to an increasing number of health problems as humans age and decreased physical activity. 12% of the population worldwide reports having constipation. Chronic constipation accounts for 3% of all visits annually to pediatric outpatient clinics. Constipation-related health care costs total $6.9 billion in the US annually. More than four million Americans have frequent constipation, accounting for 2.5 million physician visits a year. Around $725 million is spent on laxative products each year in America. History
Since ancient times different societies have published medical opinions about how health care providers should respond to constipation in patients. In various times and places, doctors have made claims that constipation has all sorts of medical or social causes. Doctors in history have treated constipation in reasonable and unreasonable ways, including use of a spatula mundani.After the advent of the germ theory of disease then the idea of "auto-intoxication" entered popular Western thought in a fresh way.
Familial progressive hyperpigmentation is characterized by patches of hyperpigmentation, present at birth, which increase in size and number with age. This is a genetic disease, however the gene that accounts for this spotty darkening of the skin has yet to be discovered. Although rare, the congenital disease is most prevalent among populations originating from China. : 858

See also
Skin lesion

References

The American Journal of Human Genetics 84, 672–677, May 15, 2009


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