Gastric myoelectrical activities in elderly human subjects--surface electrogastrographic observations

To investigate the alteration of the gastric electrical activities by aging, we performed electrogastrography (EGG) on 13 asymptomatic young human subjects under 60 years old (the young group) and 12 subjects over 60 years (the elderly group). Surface EGG was recorded at fasting state for 30 minutes in each subject. We expressed the frequency distribution of surface EGG in each subject with the median value of frequency distribution (FMED) to represent the center of the electrical activities, and the interquartile range of frequency distribution (FIQR) as the indicator of regularity. FMED in the young group was 3.0: [2.9, 3.4] (median: [range]) cycles per minute (cpm), while it was 3.3: [3.0, 4.0] in the elderly group which showed statistically a significant difference between the groups (p = 0.01). FIQR in the young group was 0.5: [0.1, 1.8] and that in the elderly group was 0.55: [0.4, 1.7], which was not significantly different statistically. These data showed that aging increases the frequencies of the rhythm of surface EGG, without disturbing its regularity. This change may be a part of a spectrum of physiological changes accompanied with aging, and are unlikely to have clinico-pathological significance.