Rumination syndrome is a GI disorder and eating disorder that causes regurgitation after eating. Within minutes or hours, food comes back up from your stomach into your mouth. Researchers believe both physical and psychological causes might trigger the behavior.

Understanding the Context

Learn about rumination disorder symptoms, health consequences, treatment. Visit the Resource Center at National Eating Disorders Association. Rumination syndrome, or merycism, is a chronic motility disorder characterized by effortless regurgitation of most meals following consumption, due to the involuntary contraction of the muscles around the abdomen. [1] Rumination syndrome is a functional gastrointestinal disorder characterized by effortless postprandial regurgi-tation.

Key Insights

The disorder appears uncommon, although only limited epidemiologic data are available. Rumination syndrome is a condition in which someone repeatedly regurgitates undigested or partially digested food from the stomach. The regurgitated food is then chewed again and swallowed or spit out. People with rumination syndrome don't try to regurgitate food. It happens without any effort.

Final Thoughts

Rumination syndrome is a rare behavioral problem. It affects children and some adults. Rumination syndrome causes an automatic regurgitation of recently eaten food. Someone with this problem will often eat meals normally. But after about 10 to 15 minutes, undigested food comes back up into the mouth from the food pipe (esophagus). This topic will review the epidemiology, etiology, diagnosis, and management of rumination syndrome.

An approach to patients with nausea and vomiting and the clinical manifestations, diagnosis and treatment of gastroesophageal reflux disease are discussed in detail separately. Rumination involves repetitive and passive thoughts focused on the causes and effects of a person's distress. The problem is that these negative thoughts don't lead to solutions.