Factors related to irritable bowel syndrome and differences among subtypes: A cross-sectional study in the UK Biobank, 2022, Wang et al

Background: Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) reduces patients’ quality of life and causes great burdens due to its unclear pathogenesis and criteria for diagnosis. This study aimed to explore the differences in prevalence and the influencing factors for IBS and its subtypes.

Methods: The UK Biobank surveyed 174,771 adult participants who completed the Digestive Health Questionnaire (DHQ) through emails and websites. DHQ included the Rome III criteria, IBS symptom severity score, and Patient Health Questionnaire 12 Somatic Symptom score. The UK Biobank also asked regarding previous IBS diagnosis, diagnosis for post-infectious IBS (PI-IBS), and environmental exposures and associated conditions (including anxiety or depression, based on treatment sought or offered). Pearson’s Chi-squared test or Wilcoxon’s rank-sum test was used for potential associations. Binary logic regression based on sex stratification was used to examine associations between selected factors and IBS and its subtypes.

Results: This study included 31,918 participants who met the Rome III criteria for IBS. The pooled prevalence of IBS in the UK Biobank was 18.3%, with mixed IBS as the predominant subtype (59.0%), followed by diarrhea-predominant IBS (25.1%), constipation-predominant IBS (14.7%), and untyped IBS (1.1%). IBS was significantly associated with somatization (male: OR = 5.326, 95% CI = 4.863–5.832; female: OR = 4.738, 95% CI = 4.498–4.992) and coeliac disease (male: OR = 4.107, 95% CI = 3.132–5.385; female: OR = 3.783, 95% CI = 3.310–4.323). Differences in antibiotics and mental status were presented among subtypes and sex. Furthermore, 1,787 individuals were diagnosed with PI-IBS in the group of patients with IBS. The prevalence of PI-IBS in IBS was 16.6% in the UK Biobank, and it was characterized by diarrhea, fever, bloody diarrhea, and vomiting.

Conclusion: Somatization and coeliac disease are primary risk factors for IBS. Distinguishing differential risk factors is critical for the precise diagnosis and treatment of IBS subtypes, particularly sex-specific differences in mental health status. General practitioners should focus on the treatment according to IBS subtypes.

Open access, https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2022.905564/full

 

In other words: illness is associated with symptoms but the symptoms are denied as being significant or related to the illness, somehow, so it's falsely attributed to some imaginary ghost in the machine as otherwise it means that it's medicine's responsibility and they don't want that.

In the end this is really all a giant case of false attribution error. Which apparently no one in psychology or psychiatry is aware of. Just a continuation of the same error, peptic ulcers would be listed in this if it hadn't been for the work of a small team. Always the same error.