When specifically asked, about one third of people report recurrent upper abdominal discomfort, and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and chronic gastritis (CG) maybe the most frequently diagnosed ones among all. Consecutive patients with upper abdominal discomfort applying to the Internal Medicine Polyclinic were included into the study. IBS was diagnosed according to Rome II criteria and CG was diagnosed histologically. All cases with IBS were compared with the age and sex-matched randomly selected cases without IBS. One hundred and fifty-six patients with IBS and 179 patients without IBS were studied. CG was detected in 72.4% (113 cases) of cases with IBS, and only 36.3% (65 cases) in patients without IBS (p < 0.001). IBS probably is a cascade of many physiological events, being initiated by infection, inflammation, psychological disturbances-like many stresses and eventually leading to dysfunctions of gut and other systems of the body via a low-grade inflammatory process. CG may be one of the terminating points of the physiological events' cascade, IBS. This may explain the high prevalence of IBS in society. Keeping in mind this association will be helpful during prevention, treatment, and follow up of these common pathologies in Primary Health Centers and Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology Polyclinics for physicians.
Children with chronic idiopathic constipation (CIC) often end up at the surgeon when medical treatments have failed. This opinion piece discusses a recently described pattern of CIC called 'Rapid transit constipation (RTC)' first identified in 2011 as part of surgical workup. RTC was identified using a nuclear medicine gastrointestinal transit study (NMGIT or nuclear transit study) to determine the site of slowing within the bowel and to inform surgical treatment. Unexpectedly, we found that RTC occured in 29% of 1000 transit studies in a retrospective audit. Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) occurs in 7-21% of the population, with a higher prevalence in young children and with constipation type dominating in the young. While 60% improve with time, 40% continue with symptoms. First-line therapy for IBS in adults is a diet low in fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols which reduces symptoms in > 70% of patients. In children with functional gastrointestinal disorders, fructose intolerance occurs in 35-55%. Reducing fructose produced significant improvement in 77-82% of intolerant patients. In children with RTC and a positive breath test upon fructose challenge, we found that exclusion of fructose significantly improved constipation, abdominal pain, stool consistency and decreased laxative use. We hypothesise that positive breath tests and improvement of pain and bowel frequency with sugar exclusion diets in RTC suggest these children have IBS-C. These observations raise the possibility that many children with CIC could be treated by reducing fructose early in their diet and this might prevent the development of IBS in later life.