GI advocacy group kicks off #YouandIBS campaign for IBS Awareness Month

Despite affecting nearly 10% of the population, irritable bowel syndrome remains highly stigmatized. During IBS Awareness Month, a gastrointestinal disease advocacy group has launched the #YouandIBS campaign to confront this stigma head on.

Although IBS is one of the most common gastrointestinal disorders in the world, it remains a source of shame for many patients, who often go undiagnosed either due to a lack of awareness and unwillingness to disclose their symptoms. To help raise awareness, the International Foundation for Gastrointestinal Disorders (IFFGD) has launched a social media campaign with the hashtag, #YouandIBS.

“Symptoms of IBS can be uncertain and can make participating in activities most people take for granted, such as eating out or traveling long distances, almost impossible,” Ceciel T. Rooker, IFFGD president, said in a recent press release. “But few recognize the true extent of this burden. This is why it is so important to raise awareness.”

The #YouandIBS campaign is focused on bringing issues of IBS diagnosis, quality of life and potential treatment into the public eye, while encouraging individuals with undiagnosed IBS to connect with clinicians. Patients and clinicians can join IFFGD’s effort to remove the stigma of IBS by sharing key messaging and images from their IBS Awareness Month Media Toolkit.

In honor of IBS Awareness Month, Healio has gathered a list of the most pressing IBS-related news from 2023 regarding potential treatments that could help relieve patients’ symptoms.

Q&A: Gravity’s role in IBS pathogenesis, symptoms: A new hypothesis

Irritable bowel syndrome may result from ineffective anatomical, physiological and neuropsychological gravity-management systems, a researcher theorized in an article published in The American Journal of Gastroenterology.

“Our relationship to gravity is not unlike the relationship of a fish to water: We live our entire life in it, are shaped by it, yet hardly notice its ever-present influence on our body,” Brennan Spiegel, MD, MSHS, director of health services research and professor of medicine and public health at Cedars-Sinai Health System in Los Angeles, told Healio. Read more.

Bloating, abdominal pain key in patient perception of global IBS-D symptoms

Treatment for irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhea should target bloating in addition to diarrhea and abdominal pain or discomfort, according to data presented at the ACG Annual Scientific Meeting.

“The aim of this analysis was to assess potential relationships between improvement in abdominal pain, bloating, stool consistency and global IBS symptoms in patients with IBS-D,” Kyle Staller, MD, MPH, director of the Gastrointestinal Motility Laboratory at Massachusetts General and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, told Healio. Read more.

Acupuncture may improve abdominal pain in IBS-D

Specific and nonspecific acupoint acupuncture improved symptoms of diarrhea among a small subset of patients with irritable bowel syndrome, according to results from a pilot study reported in JAMA Network Open.

“Available treatments target IBS symptoms rather than underlying pathophysiological mechanisms, and additional improvements in the testing methods are still necessary. All these factors have resulted in an increasing interest in complementary and alternative medicine, such as acupuncture,” Ling-Yu Qi, MM, of the International Acupuncture and Moxibustion Innovation Institute in Beijing, and colleagues wrote. “A previous study suggested that acupuncture has promising effects on IBS.” Read more.

Plecanatide decreases severity of abdominal pain, bloating in IBS-C

Once daily plecanatide decreased symptom severity among patients with irritable bowel syndrome-constipation and severe abdominal pain and bloating, according to a poster presented at the ACG Annual Scientific Meeting.

“The objective of this analysis was to evaluate the efficacy of plecanatide for improving severe abdominal pain and/or severe bloating in patients with IBS-C,” Gregory S. Sayuk, MD, MPH, associate professor of gastroenterology at Washington University School of Medicine, told Healio. Read more.

Daily Xifaxan improves fecal urgency, stool consistency in adults with IBS-D

Daily treatment with Xifaxan over 2 weeks improved stool consistency and fecal urgency in adults with irritable bowel syndrome-diarrhea, according to a poster at the ACG Annual Scientific Meeting.

“This research was conducted to evaluate rifaximin treatment for simultaneously improving IBS-D symptoms of fecal urgency and loose or watery stool consistency as a unique composite bowel symptom endpoint,” Brooks D. Cash, MD, chief of the division of gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, and colleagues told Healio. Read more.

Daily plecanatide boosts bowel movement in chronic idiopathic constipation, IBS-C

Once daily plecanatide effectively relieved symptoms in patients of varying age with chronic idiopathic constipation and irritable bowel syndrome-constipation, according to a poster at the ACG Annual Scientific Meeting.

“This analysis was conducted to further assess the potential impact of age on the efficacy and safety of plecanatide in an analysis of adults with [chronic idiopathic constipation] or IBS-C,” Kyle Staller, MD, director of the Gastrointestinal Motility Laboratory at Massachusetts General and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, told Healio. Read more.