Irritable Bowel Syndrome

A two-week treatment with an antibiotic can ease overall symptoms in many patients with irritable bowel syndrome for at least 10 weeks and perhaps for much longer, according to a pair of clinical trials of more than 1,200 patients reported Wednesday. The proportion of patients who benefited ? about 11% ? was modest, but the fact that any at all were helped validated the idea that intestinal bacteria play a role in the onset of irritable bowel syndrome, commonly known as IBS, said Dr. Mark Pimentel of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, who led the study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Occupations such as those underway in cities across the country pose staggering logistical problems. Large numbers of people must be fed and kept reasonably warm and dry. Trash has to be removed; medical care and rudimentary security provided. But for the individual occupier, one problem often overshadows everything else: Where am I going to pee? Some of the Occupy Wall Street encampments spreading across the U.S. have access to portable toilets (such as those on the City Hall lawn in Los Angeles)

Irritable bowel syndrome has been a tough disorder to understand. Studies have failed to show any structural problems in the gut that would account for the symptoms of pain, bloating, diarrhea and constipation. However, the disorder is real, affecting as many as 15% of Americans. A new study has found a possible connection between IBS and the brain. Researchers at McGill University and UCLA used MRI scans to reveal changes in the brains of women with the disorder. The researchers took MRI scans of 55 IBS patients and 48 healthy women for comparison.

This post has been corrected. See note at the bottom for details. The gluten-free crowd is growing cranky. So-called prominent members of the “gluten-free community” are  gathering next month in Washington, D.C., to clamor for attention. They want the FDA to get cracking on setting label standards for gluten-free products.  Small wonder. Their condition, in which proteins in grain called “glutens” damage the small intestines, is a hard one. Known as celiac disease , the condition causes stomach pain, bloating, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting.

Irritable bowel syndrome -- a condition that causes abdominal discomfort, bloating and constipation or diarrhea in about 10% to 15% of Americans -- may be triggered by fructose in some people, conclude University of Iowa researchers. In a study involving 80 people with IBS, the researchers found that 31 were fructose intolerant. Those who were fructose intolerant and able to maintain a mostly fructose-free diet for at least six months had a significant improvement in symptoms.

A short course of the antibiotic rifaximin can relieve the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome for at least 10 weeks in the majority of patients, researchers from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center reported this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The fact that the benefit persisted for so long indicates that "the antibiotic was acting on the source of the problem -- excess bacteria in the gut," said lead author Dr. Mark Pimentel, director of the Gastrointestinal Motility Program at Cedars.

It is the second leading cause of absenteeism from work in this country, trailing only the common cold. It affects 10% to 15% of the population, generating billions in medical bills every year. It traps many of its victims at home in the fear that they will be embarrassed by incontinence in public. Others commute to work in recreational vehicles so they will always have a bathroom handy.

Pfizer to Spend $1 Billion on Drug Research: Pfizer Inc. said it will spend more than $1 billion in 1993 on research aimed at new drugs. The New York company said it already has four drugs in clinical research that have shown promising results. The four are tenidap, a prototype for a new class of drugs to treat arthritis; dofetilide, to treat heart rhythm disorders; zamifenacin, to treat irritable bowel syndrome; and CP-88,059, a new antipsychotic agent.

Women who suffer constipation-causing irritable bowel syndrome won their first government-approved treatment on Wednesday. But while its maker predicts Zelnorm will prove a big hit, a critic already is charging that health authorities shouldn't have let it sell. Zelnorm's approval comes just weeks after the Food and Drug Administration let another controversial bowel drug, Lotronex, back on the market, two years after serious side effects halted its sales.

THE YEAR I was diagnosed with celiac disease, I wrote the following on a page of my journal: "Relafen, Famotidine/Pepcid, Lorazepam, Cyclobenzaprine, Vioxx, Vicodin, Soma, that steroid: forgot name, Celebrex, Valium, Prevacid." The analgesics were for arrows of pain shooting from the nape of my neck to my fingers. The stomach soothers were for a constant, low-level ache that doctors diagnosed as irritable bowel syndrome.

A two-week treatment with an antibiotic can ease overall symptoms in many patients with irritable bowel syndrome for at least 10 weeks and perhaps for much longer, according to a pair of clinical trials of more than 1,200 patients reported Wednesday. The proportion of patients who benefited ? about 11% ? was modest, but the fact that any at all were helped validated the idea that intestinal bacteria play a role in the onset of irritable bowel syndrome, commonly known as IBS, said Dr. Mark Pimentel of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, who led the study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

A simple sugar pill may help treat a disease — even if patients know they're getting fake medicine. The finding, reported online Wednesday in the journal PloS One, may point the way to wider — and more ethical — applications of the well-known "placebo effect. " "The conventional wisdom is you need to make a patient think they're taking a drug; you have to use deception and lies," said lead author Ted Kaptchuk, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Irritable bowel syndrome has been a tough disorder to understand. Studies have failed to show any structural problems in the gut that would account for the symptoms of pain, bloating, diarrhea and constipation. However, the disorder is real, affecting as many as 15% of Americans. A new study has found a possible connection between IBS and the brain. Researchers at McGill University and UCLA used MRI scans to reveal changes in the brains of women with the disorder. The researchers took MRI scans of 55 IBS patients and 48 healthy women for comparison.

THE YEAR I was diagnosed with celiac disease, I wrote the following on a page of my journal: "Relafen, Famotidine/Pepcid, Lorazepam, Cyclobenzaprine, Vioxx, Vicodin, Soma, that steroid: forgot name, Celebrex, Valium, Prevacid." The analgesics were for arrows of pain shooting from the nape of my neck to my fingers. The stomach soothers were for a constant, low-level ache that doctors diagnosed as irritable bowel syndrome.

A short course of the antibiotic rifaximin can relieve the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome for at least 10 weeks in the majority of patients, researchers from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center reported this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The fact that the benefit persisted for so long indicates that "the antibiotic was acting on the source of the problem -- excess bacteria in the gut," said lead author Dr. Mark Pimentel, director of the Gastrointestinal Motility Program at Cedars.

When a disease is poorly understood, when it's of a distinctly personal nature and when medication doesn't help, there's often little left to do but to suffer in silence. That's the case for the 15% of Americans -- about 25 million people -- who have irritable bowel syndrome. Although television commercials and magazine advertisements promise easy relief for a chronically misbehaving gut, many people with the condition know better.

Occupations such as those underway in cities across the country pose staggering logistical problems. Large numbers of people must be fed and kept reasonably warm and dry. Trash has to be removed; medical care and rudimentary security provided. But for the individual occupier, one problem often overshadows everything else: Where am I going to pee? Some of the Occupy Wall Street encampments spreading across the U.S. have access to portable toilets (such as those on the City Hall lawn in Los Angeles)

The next time your gut goes to pieces after a meal, it may turn out that fruit was the source of all that digestive distress. Doctors have long recognized that lactose intolerance--an ability to digest milk sugar--is responsible for some of the irritable bowel syndrome that plagues about 10% of all Americans.

Some users of the irritable-bowel treatment Zelnorm have suffered diarrhea so serious they require hospitalization, and four have died from an intestinal problem, the government said Wednesday. The Food and Drug Administration emphasized that it had not proved a link between the intestinal condition, called ischemic colitis, and the drug. But the agency ordered that a precaution about the intestinal condition go on Zelnorm's label, along with a larger warning about severe diarrhea.

Irritable bowel syndrome -- a condition that causes abdominal discomfort, bloating and constipation or diarrhea in about 10% to 15% of Americans -- may be triggered by fructose in some people, conclude University of Iowa researchers. In a study involving 80 people with IBS, the researchers found that 31 were fructose intolerant. Those who were fructose intolerant and able to maintain a mostly fructose-free diet for at least six months had a significant improvement in symptoms.