The osmotic laxative magnesium sulphate activates the ileal brake.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Calcium Channel Blockers in this randomized controlled trial publication.

To investigate whether artificially-induced accelerated small intestinal transit activates the ileal brake mechanism.

Why It Was Studied

Alterations in gastrointestinal motility and hormone secretion, especially activation of the ileal brake, have been documented in malabsorption.

Who Took Part

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were teenagers and adults, both men and women.

Eight healthy volunteers (four female, four male; age 21 +/- 3 years) participated in four experiments: (a) meal with either oral magnesium sulphate (MgSO4) or placebo; and (b) fasting with either oral MgSO4 or placebo.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized and placebo-controlled study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Calcium Channel Blockers and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Calcium Channel Blockers group a baseline to be compared against.

Antroduodenal motility was recorded by perfusion manometry.

Duodenocaecal transit time was determined by the lactulose H2 breath test.

Gall-bladder volume was measured by ultrasound at regular intervals, and blood samples were drawn for determination of cholecystokinin and peptide YY (RIA).

Twenty-four hour faecal weight and fat excretion were determined.

What Was Measured

Alterations in gastrointestinal motility and hormone secretion, especially activation of the ileal brake, have been documented in malabsorption.

The subject headings attached to it are Breath Tests, Calcium Channel Blockers, Fasting, Feces, Gallbladder, Gastrointestinal Motility and Gastrointestinal Transit.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and placebo-controlled study of Calcium Channel Blockers.

Results are reported in around 5 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2000 (Alimentary pharmacology & therapeutics), a journal based in England.

More context: all human trials.