The drinking test: a current noninvasive technique to evaluate gastric accommodation and perception.

Impaired gastric accommodation has been proposed as an im- portant mechanism in the generation of functional dyspepsia. There is an interest in methods that allow recording and quantifica- tion of the gastric accommodation reflex. Drinking tests, with water or nutrients, have been developed as a noninvasive, inexpensive method to assess gastric perception and accommodation. These tests are easily performed, do not need any special equipment and are well tolerated by patients. Drink test results are reported as the maximum tolerated volume, individual and cumulative symptom scores. Patients with functional dyspepsia have showed lower max- imum tolerated volumes than healthy volunteers. In these patients the maximum tolerated volume reflects the severity of early satiety and predicts impaired gastric accommodation, but it remains un- clear what physiologic processes are assessed by the drinking tests. Results of drinking tests may be influenced by physiologic factors, thus these results do not guide therapy. Given these facts, drinking tests are best reserved for clinical research purposes evaluating functional dyspeptic patients or patients with gastroparesis.