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Definition
By Mayo Clinic staff
Whipple's disease is a rare bacterial infection that most often affects your gastrointestinal system. Whipple's disease interferes with normal digestion, impairing the breakdown of foods, such as fats and carbohydrates, and hampering your body's ability to absorb nutrients.
In addition to affecting your intestinal tract, Whipple's disease can infect other organs, including your brain, heart, joints and eyes.
Without proper treatment, Whipple's disease can be serious or fatal. But no matter which part of your body Whipple's disease affects, a course of antibiotics can provide successful treatment.
- Whipple's disease. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/whipple/. Accessed April 20, 2010.
- Schneider T, et al. Whipple's disease: New aspects of pathogenesis and treatment. The Lancet. 2008;8:179.
- Infectious enterocolitis. In: Kumar V, et al. Robbins and Cotran Pathologic Basis of Disease. 8th ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Saunders Elsevier; 2007. http://www.mdconsult.com/das/book/body/198838576-5/991412257/2060/201.html#4-u1.0-B978-1-4377-0792-2..50022-5--cesec139_1852. Accessed April 20, 2010.
- Apstein M, et al. Whipple's disease. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed April 20, 2010.
- Marth T, et al. Whipple's disease. In: Mandell GL, et al. Mandell, Douglas, and Bennett's Principles and Practice of Infectious Diseases. 76th ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Churchill Livingstone Elsevier: 2009. http://www.mdconsult.com/book/player/book.do?method=display&type=bookPage&decorator=header&eid=4-u1.0-B978-0-443-06839-3..00101-6--s0025&uniq=198838576&isbn=978-0-443-06839-3&sid=991410994#lpState=open&lpTab=contentsTab&content=4-u1.0-B978-0-443-06839-3..00101-6--s0030%3Bfrom%3Dtoc%3Btype%3DbookPage%3Bisbn%3D978-0-443-06839-3. Accessed April 30, 2010.
- Steckelberg JM (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. April 30, 2010.
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