PODCAST. About ten percent of the adult population has IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, in varying degrees of severity. Professor Magnus Simrén conducts IBS research from many different perspectives and explains (in Swedish) about the disease and the progress of research in Akademiliv’s podcast.
Listen here (in Swedish): https://soundcloud.com/sahlgrenskaakademin/ibs-experten-magnus-simren-gastar-akademilivs-podcast
To be diagnosed with IBS, you must have long-term stomach pain linked to constipation or diarrhea. It is a complex disease and the causes are not fully understood, but abnormalities, both locally in the intestines and in the central nervous system, are considered important. Which characteristic symptoms are most significant and their severity vary among individual patients.
“This complexity means that many of us working with IBS do not believe that it is a single disease, but that there may be different subgroups, where different mechanisms come into play differently,” Magnus Simrén explains in the podcast Akademiliv.
IBS is not a new disease. Its symptoms were described in the 19th century. IBS was long considered an exclusion diagnosis, that is, a diagnosis given when examinations show no other known disease. For the last 30 years, though, it has been a disease with defined diagnostic criteria, known as the Rome Criteria.
“Health care has improved significantly since IBS became a positive diagnosis, which is made based on identifying the typical symptoms. Patients no longer need to be subjected to a lot of unnecessary examinations.”
For a long time, research focused on the disease being caused by problems with bowel movements, but in recent years it has become increasingly clear that the problems are in the signals between the brain and the intestines, and changes in gut microbiota play an important role.
Interviewing are Communications Officers Karin Allander and Elin Lindström.
TEXT: ELIN LINDSTRÖM
