Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)--- characterized by abdominal pain , bloating, and altered bowel habit-;may last 4 or more years following a bout of gastroenteritis in around half of those affected, finds a pooled data analysis of the available evidence, published online in the journal Gut . Aggressive and pro-inflammatory bacteria, such as Proteobacteria and Enterobacteriaceae, and the virus responsible for COVID-19 infection, SARS-CoV-2, are possible culprits, the findings suggest. IBS and recurrent indigestion of unknown cause (functional dyspepsia), are disorders of the gut-brain axis.
Although common worldwide, their causes remain poorly understood, note the researchers. But a sudden bout of gastroenteritis, usually brought on by a viral infection or food poisoning, is thought to be one of the possible triggers, explain the researchers, who add that an estimated 179 million people around the globe succumb to gastroenteritis every year. To explore this further, they trawled research databases, looking for published studies on the development of IBS or functional dyspepsia after a bout of gastroenteritis in people monitored for at least 3 months after the episode.
From a haul of 75 eligible studies, 45, involving a total of 21870 people mostly from Europe and North America, were suitable for pooled data analysis. Sixteen studies were judged to be of high quality, with the rest judged to be of fair quality. The prevalence of IBS after a bout of gastroenteritis was 14.
5%. Thi.