Summary
A researcher from USC recently published an interesting new study in the Journal of American Medicine that seems to point to bacteria as the cause of a common condition known as Irritable Bowel Syndrome or IBS. This overgrowth of bacteria may be behind the frequent IBS complaint of bloating after eating. As the bacteria ferments food, gas is released into the small intestine, causing painful bloating and other symptoms.
Antibiotics appear to be effective in reducing 75% of IBS symptoms as they destroy bacteria in the small intestine. More studies will be necessary to determine if this could be a possible solution to IBS.
Original source:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/09/040903093237.htm
Details
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The enigmatic-but-common condition known as irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS, is caused by an overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine, a USC researcher has proposed in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
- Researchers have suggested numerous theories to explain IBS, which affects as many as 36 million Americans.
- But according to gastrointestinal motility specialist Henry C. Lin, associate professor of medicine in the Keck School of Medicine of USC, the idea of a bacterial origin of IBS represents a major change in thinking.
- "IBS has long been a frustrating diagnosis for both patients and their physicians," Lin said.
- "The bacterial hypothesis of IBS offers new hope for suffering patients by providing a new framework for understanding the symptoms of this disorder, pointing to new strategies for treatment."
- Physicians frequently diagnose a patient with IBS when ongoing symptoms - including diarrhea, constipation, bloating, gas and abdominal pain - are not explained by medical tests such as gastrointestinal endoscopies.
- For more than a dozen years, Lin has searched for a common thread to account for the symptoms in IBS.
- There are plenty of organisms in the gut, where bacteria may number 100 trillion.
- In this test, the patient ingests a syrup containing the sugar lactulose.
- Over the next three hours, the gaseous products of bacterial fermentation of this sugar may be measured in the exhaled breath.
- In a 2003 paper authored by Lin and his research partner Mark Pimentel of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, 84 percent of IBS patients were found to have abnormal breath test results suggesting small intestinal bacterial overgrowth.
- "The immune response to bacterial antigens may then explain the flu-like symptoms that can greatly diminish the quality of life such as chronic fatigue and pain," Lin said.
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Saturday, September 04, 2004
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