What Is gastroenteritis?

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What Is gastroenteritis?

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The term gastroenteritis is broad even when used by doctors, says Jay Solnick, MD, professor of medicine and an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine. "If I was talking to a colleague and told him a patient of mine had gastroenteritis, my colleague would expect that I meant he had nausea or vomiting or diarrhea," he says.

Generally, however, it means irritated and inflamed stomach and intestines (the gastrointestinal tract) and may be due to any number of things, including bacteria or viruses, or parasites, which can spread quickly through contaminated food or water.

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