General statistics

• Over 1 million people are diagnosed with a digestive condition/disease every year in England (1). Last year’s total was particularly high, with over 1.4 million diagnoses – accounting for over 3.5 million bed days(2).
• Over 3 million operations were carried out on sections of the digestive system in 2004/05, accounting for 8.4 million bed days (3).
• One third of the population regularly suffers from digestive illnesses such as irritable bowel syndrome, constipation, diarrhoea, stomach-aches, nausea and sickness (4).
• 60% of British adults have experienced digestive problems when undergoing stressful situations (5).
• 1.7 million people present chronic (longstanding) digestive sickness in Great Britain (6)
• The Medical Research Council spent £4.6 million on research relevant to digestive diseases and conditions in 2003/04 (7). ¹
• GPs prescribed over £650 million worth of drugs for the gastrointestinal system last year in England (8).
• 12% of deaths in the UK are linked to the digestive tract (9).

Diseases and conditions

• Bowel Cancer is the second biggest cancer killer in the UK. This year, 35,500 people will be diagnosed with the disease, which claims 50 lives a day in the UK (10).  However, the past 30 years have shown significant increases in five-year survival rates. (11)
• Cancers of the digestive tract are the largest cancer killer, accounting for 23% of all UK cancer mortalities. (12)
• Recent research has shown that as many as 1 in 100 people in the UK may have coeliac disease. However, due to an absence of symptoms, only 1 in 800 people have been diagnosed in the UK. (13)
• Over 3 million people in the UK suffer from constipation every month (14).
• Between one-third and one-half of the population of the population of Western Europe will get diverticula in the colon during their lifetime. (13)
• By the age of 60, nearly a quarter of women will have developed gallstones (13).
• 2 million people suffer an attack of diarrhoea and/or vomiting due to food poisoning yearly in the UK. (13)
• Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a very common condition in our society. It affects a third of our population at one time or another. About 1 in 10 people suffer symptoms bad enough to go to a doctor (15).
• Stomach cancer is the 7^th commonest cancer amongst adults in the UK, with about 9,000 cases diagnosed every year. Stomach cancer is nearly twice as common in men as it is in women (11).
• Ulcerative colitis affects around 100,000 people in the UK (13).

Bowel habits

• People open their bowels between three times a day and three times a week in the UK (16).
• The normal daily stool weight in the UK is 50-200g.  However, in countries where the diet is higher in fibre, the daily stool weight can be as much as 500g (17).
• The gut usually contains about 200ml of gas and every day we pass 400-2000ml of this gas out through the back passage as flatus (13).