Somatization, psychological distress, and quality of life across [FM], [IBS], and their comorbid phenotype: ... 2025 Prospero et al

[Andy]

Full title: Somatization, psychological distress, and quality of life across fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, and their comorbid phenotype: a cross-sectional clinical comparison.

Background: Fibromyalgia (FM) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) are increasingly recognized as disorders involving central sensory processing and gut–brain axis dysregulation, often accompanied by autonomic and psychological disturbances.

Methods: We investigated whether patients with comorbid FM and IBS (FM + IBS) experience greater somatization and reduced quality of life (QoL) compared to those with either condition alone, and if somatization serves as a predictor of gastrointestinal (GI) symptom severity. In this cross-sectional study, 53 adults (mean age 47.4 ± 1.3 years; 48 women) were classified into three groups: FM-only (n = 13), IBS-only (n = 18), and FM + IBS (n = 22). Participants completed validated assessments including the IBS Symptom Severity Scale, the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised, the Perceived Stress Scale, and QoL measures (SF-36, WHOQOL-BREF). Group differences were analyzed using the Kruskal-Wallis test, and predictors of IBS severity were identified via stepwise multiple linear regression.

Results: FM-only and FM + IBS patients reported similar levels of pain, fatigue, and functional impact. GI symptoms were mild in FM-only patients but moderate in IBS-only and FM + IBS groups, with large effect sizes for psychological distress, mental health, and IBS severity. While FM + IBS participants showed slightly higher FM-related symptom scores, differences were not statistically significant. Somatization and diagnostic group independently predicted IBS severity, together explaining 50% of the variance.

Conclusion: These findings demonstrate a progressive increase in somatization and a parallel decline in QoL across the spectrum from IBS-only to FM-only to FM + IBS, supporting the concept of functional somatic syndromes as a continuum. Incorporating routine assessment of somatization and QoL impairment may help identify patients at higher risk of treatment resistance and facilitate timely, integrated biopsychosocial strategies, including cognitive-behavioral and neuromodulatory interventions.

Open access

 

[rvallee]

None of this makes any sense and it's completely circular reasoning. Everything they claim is far better explained by the impact of the illness, with the obvious fact that removing the symptoms would make the "somatization" completely disappear, no matter how much mathemagics they want to throw at it. They take pure correlates and argue prediction, something that should never pass peer review and would in fact fail most intro classes.

But of course this is simply marketing for this:

Incorporating routine assessment of somatization and QoL impairment may help identify patients at higher risk of treatment resistance and facilitate timely, integrated biopsychosocial strategies, including cognitive-behavioral and neuromodulatory interventions.

Homeopaths always find that homeopathic treatments are needed. Psychosomatizers always find that psychosomatic treatments are needed. Members of any cult will always find that their cult system is needed. Completely unserious in all cases.

Somatization and diagnostic group independently predicted IBS severity, together explaining 50% of the variance.

And playing with imaginary numbers, not mathematically imaginary but in the sense of being purely imagined and having nothing to do with reality or any real-life applications.

 

[Trish]

I seem to have said a million times this year. Studies based on getting sick people to fill in a pile of unsatisfactory and often inappropraite questionnaires should not be considered scientific reseach worthy of publication. And should never be used to draw conclusions that accuse sick people of made up concepts like somatisation.

Seriously, was a patient every helped by this nonsense?

 

[Sean]

Fibromyalgia (FM) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) are increasingly recognized as disorders involving central sensory processing and gut–brain axis dysregulation,​

Recognised by whom?

Mostly by people who claim these conditions involve central sensory processing and gut-brain dysregulation, and build careers on that claim.

Somatization and diagnostic group independently predicted IBS severity, together explaining 50% of the variance.​

That is not what explain means in any practical causal sense. It is superficial correlations based on problematic diagnostic categories, one of which (IBS) is a descriptive place marker at best, and the other (somatisation) which is stuffed full of arbitrary casual attributions.