App-based diet intervention superior in managing IBS
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A FODMAP-lowering diet administered through smartphone application was superior to standard medical therapy alone in improved symptom severity among patients with irritable bowel syndrome, according to a presentation at Digestive Disease Week.
“In primary care, IBS is a condition that generates high diagnostic and therapeutic uncertainty for general practitioners and the efficacy of currently available therapeutic modalities is limited. In Europe, musculotropic agents (otilonium bromide [OB]) are commonly used,” Karen Van Den Hout, PhD, Translational Research in Gastrointestinal Disorders, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, and colleagues wrote. “Recently, at the level of specialist care, the low FODMAP diet, supervised by an experienced dietician, was shown to provide significant improvement but the use in primary care remains to be explored.”
In a clinical trial, researchers randomly assigned 453 patients with IBS (average age 41 years; 76% women) to receive either OB (60 mg) IBS treatment (n = 231) or a FODMAP lowering diet (n = 227) for 8-weeks to compare improvement on symptoms, quality of life and psycho-social comorbidity. Follow-up continued until 6-months.
According to study results, IBS symptom severity scores improved over time in both the OB cohort (267 vs. 170) and the diet cohort (267 vs. 96). Further, researchers noted improvement in quality of life, anxiety, depression and somatization.
“A FODMAP-lowering diet is superior to standard medical therapy in primary care IBS. Responder rate to treatment is higher with a smartphone application and maintained significance during follow-up,” Houte concluded. “We found a significant improvement in quality of life, anxiety, depression and somatization compared to the baseline periods.”
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Van Den Houte K, et al. Abstract 512. Presented at: Digestive Disease Week; May 21-23, 2021 (virtual meeting).
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