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A serious bout with a tummy bug may mean heartburn years later, new research shows.

Serious bacterial or viral infections of the digestive system-known medically as infectious gastroenteritis-may lead to some cases of irritable bowel syndrome, possibly by causing low-grade inflammation in the intestine, Dr. Alex Ford of McMaster University Medical Center in Hamilton, Ontario and his colleagues note.

Studies have suggested that such infections could also be linked with functional dyspepsia-basically, symptoms of heartburn, fullness and indigestion with no known cause-but the evidence isn’t as strong.

To investigate, Ford and his team looked at a group of people who had been living in the small rural town of Walkerton, Ontario, during a 2000 outbreak of bacterial gastroenteritis after the municipal water supply became contaminated with cow manure. At least 2,300 people were sickened, and seven died.

Two years after the outbreak, in 2002, the researchers enrolled a representative sample of the town’s population in an ongoing study. In 2008, they followed up with 1,088 of the study participants, about two-thirds of whom reported having gotten sick during the outbreak. About 40 percent of the entire group reported dyspepsia symptoms, such as heartburn and unpleasant sensations of fullness after a meal.

Among those who’d been sickened in the outbreak, half had dyspepsia symptoms, compared to 30 percent of the people who hadn’t gotten sick during the outbreak. The risk was more than twice as high for the outbreak victims, and this remained true even when the researchers used a stricter definition for dyspepsia.

The findings suggest, the researchers conclude, that gut infections “have the ability to trigger symptoms that affect the upper, as well as the lower gastrointestinal tract, with long-lasting consequences.”

SOURCE: Gastroenterology.

New measurements for determining dangerous blood sugar levels for pregnant women and their unborn babies mean that two to three times as many women will be diagnosed with gestational diabetes, a new study suggests.

Instead of 5 percent to 8 percent of pregnant women being diagnosed with gestational diabetes, the new measurements mean that more than 16 percent would be diagnosed with the condition, said study author Dr. Boyd Metzger, a professor of metabolism and nutrition at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine.

The current gestational diabetes measurements are based on blood sugar levels that identified women at high risk for developing diabetes in the future, but didn’t take into account other risks to the mother or baby, including increased risk of overweight babies with high insulin levels, early deliveries, cesarean deliveries, and potentially life-threatening preeclampsia (high blood pressure that affects the pregnant women and her unborn child).

Metzger and an international group of researchers studied more than 23,000 women in nine countries and concluded that a fasting blood sugar level of 92 or higher, a one-hour level of 180 or higher on a glucose tolerance test, or a two-hour level of 153 or higher on a glucose tolerance test pose a serious threat to mother and baby.

Previously, those levels were considered in the safe and normal range.

“At these levels, the frequency of having an overweight baby is almost double, the frequency of having preeclampsia is almost double, and the frequency of early delivery is 40 percent greater. These are really substantial differences,” Metzger said.

The study appears in the March issue of Diabetes Care.