SUMMARY:   Bottom Line of this post: You want OFF the IBS diseasepan!  WHY? Because — putting aside pain, bowel issues, and bloat — IBS can alter the brain size and function in the emotion and sensory processing areas when having it a long time along with early life stressors [Labus et al., 2017], it is associated with A LOT of diseases, and there are A LOT of surgeries performed inappropriately because of misdiagnosis or poor manangement of IBS!  DISEASES that are associated with IBS  — the listing is NOT  comprehensive — includes:   Type 2 Diabetes, metabolic syndrome, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, IBD, CFS/ME, autism, anxiety, depression, MS, and Parkinson’s.  Inappropriate SURGERIES occurring due to IBS  misdiagnosis includes —  appendectomy, cholecystectomy, ovarian, and hysterectomy.  See below for All of those links. There are lots of ways to get off the IBS diseasespan!  Learn in this post that it is YOUR choice:  IBS, Microbiome, Fodmaps, Probiotics, Mindfulness-based stress reduction, Cognitive behavioral therapy works… or targeted drugs!  Or not drugs — because of the poor efficacy of that current US standard of care:  “The physician should also emphasize the chronic nature of this syndrome [IBS] because nearly 75% of patients continue to have a diagnosis of IBS 5 years later.¹³ ”  [Occhipinti et al., 2012].   “Many different drugs have been suggested for IBS treatment, but their real benefits are very debatable.”  [Bellini et al., 2014].   Don’t be surprised.  In 2012, the FDA changed the endpoints of those drug studies to stop being only one endpoint because of how multi factorial IBS symptomolgy is, and the Bristol Stool Chart — defining what is a ‘normal BM’ (which you’ll learn in this post) — despite being around since 1997, is only now being validated, 2016!  Contrast all this to the UK British Dietetic Association guidelines for IBS — low FODMAP diet is the second-line intervention [Catassi et al., 2017]  [McKenzie et al, 2016]   [UK evidence-based practice guidelines for dietetic management of IBS in adults 2012 PDF]) as it helps about seventy-six percent of IBS patients  [Magge et al., 2012]  [Bohn et al., 2015]   [Staudacher et al., 2011] and yet, it has come under attack with the current US standard of care still NOT recognizing the FODMAP diet (see this post).  A rebuttal to all the rift recently published in 2017, authored by Monash University ressearchers, the creators of the FODMAP diet.  See  [Hill et al., 2017]  To piggyback the diet fix, studies continue to find that probiotics might be something to think about for some cases of IBS — see  [Whiteley, 2016].  Wondering about IBS and what early life stressors might mean?  That group had more history of early life trauma (general trauma (31 items), physical (9 items), emotional (7 items), and sexual abuse (15 items)) AND they had longer duration of IBS symptoms.  [Labus et al., 2017]  While we can’t change our early life stressors, there are lots of ways to tackle IBS using diet, probiotics, mindfulness-based stress reduction, cognitive behavioral therapy and targeted drugs — according to the Monash rebuttal [Labus et al., 2017].  Now you know!  Protect brain size and function, avoid potentially needless surgery and improve your disease status by fixing IBS; LISTEN to your gut!  Unbelievable… check out the global prevalence of IBS: