Health
3 diet and health tips for someone struggling with IBS
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a digestive condition that can cause substantial discomfort in those who have it.
Medical professionals use the common symptoms associated with the disease as a driving factor in diagnosis and can help patients formulate a plan that prevents IBS from negatively impacting their quality of life.
While there is no cure for IBS, there are plenty of adjustments to diet and behavior that can be implemented that have proven to be successful in easing symptoms.
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Read more about IBS diagnosis and symptoms below.
- How is IBS diagnosed?
- How do you fix IBS?
- Does IBS go away?
If you have persistent digestive concerns, talking through symptoms with your doctor can help you reach a diagnosis. (iStock)
1. How is IBS diagnosed?
There is no single test that is done in order to diagnose IBS.
Rather, doctors diagnose IBS by talking through the symptoms a patient is experiencing.
“We make the diagnosis mainly based on symptoms, and there are criteria called the Rome criteria, which were developed by a worldwide group of experts in classifying disorders of gut brain interaction,” Dr. Laurence Bailen, chief of gastroenterology and hepatology at Newton Wellesley Hospital in Newton, Massachusetts, part of the Mass General Brigham system, told Fox News Digital in a phone interview.
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“Everybody with irritable bowel syndrome needs to have abdominal pain as one of their main symptoms and associated with abdominal pain, they’ll have disorders of the function of the intestines,” Bailen continued.
“They’ll either have constipation or they’ll have diarrhea, or there’s a group of patients who have a mixture between both diarrhea and constipation that alternates.”
If you are experiencing prolonged digestive issues that are impacting your overall well-being, it is vital to speak with a doctor and begin to find answers as to why these problems are occurring.
IBS is typically diagnosed based on a patient’s symptoms. (iStock)
2. How do you fix IBS?
There are many different ways to help ease IBS symptoms.
The main ways to treat IBS can be broken down into three different categories: diet and lifestyle adjustments, behavior modification and medications, according to Bailen.
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“From a diet standpoint, one of the main diets that has been recommended and shown to be beneficial in people with IBS in clinical studies, is what’s called the low FODMAP diet and that’s an acronym for fermentable, oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols,” Bailen said.
“These are basically food substances. There’s fruits, vegetables, artificial sweeteners, certain gluten-containing foods, that have been shown to be more difficult to digest and absorb,” Bailen continued.”By eliminating those types of foods, and focusing on foods that have lower FODMAPs in them, that has improved symptoms of abdominal discomfort and bloating that are very typical for IBS.”
Beyond diet, there are other lifestyle changes IBS patients can make to help ease their symptoms.
For those with IBS, a shift in diet can help uncomfortable symptoms subside. (iStock)
This includes practices known to alleviate stress, such as acupuncture, meditation and yoga, as well as speaking with a therapist, Bailen said.
In conjunction with diet and lifestyle changes, those with IBS are typically prescribed medication, which will coincide with what the individual’s primary symptom is, Bailen added.
3. Does IBS go away?
IBS is a condition that usually remains with individuals for their lifetime.
Typically, IBS is spotted at a younger age, commonly seen in people in their teens through their 30s, Bailen said.
For those older IBS patients, Bailen said they’re typically diagnosed later because they were living with IBS, without consulting a doctor.
Practicing mindfulness through yoga and meditation can help alleviate common IBS symptoms. (iStock)
While there are commonalities among IBS patients, the condition affects each person a bit differently.
For example, when it comes to food sensitivities, not all IBS patients suffer from the same ones.
“There are some patients who can tolerate foods that are on a low FODMAP diet, and other patients who just can’t at all, so it’s very variable,” Bailen said.
While each patient’s experience will be a bit different, there are foods on a general scale that those with IBS should try to avoid.
“In general, though, avoid foods that have a high fat content,” Bailen said.
“So any fried foods, oily, greasy foods are usually tolerated poorly, just because those foods in general, are more difficult for our guts to digest and absorb. Other foods that tend to be a big problem can be artificial sweeteners.”
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“Finally, lactose intolerance is really common and is the most common acquired food intolerance,” Bailen added.
“It also can exacerbate underlying symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome.”
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A new injectable therapy is showing positive results in reducing melanoma throughout a five-year period.
The personalized mRNA cancer therapy, called intismeran autogene, combined with the cancer immunotherapy drug KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab), is a collaboration between Merck and Moderna.
The results from the phase 2b KEYNOTE-942 study were presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting in Chicago on May 27.
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After about a five-year follow-up, the combo drug was found to reduce the risk of melanoma recurrence or death by 49% compared to pembrolizumab alone.
The researchers analyzed data from 157 patients with high-risk stage 3 and 4 melanoma whose cancer had been removed via surgery. The participants were split into two groups — one received the combo therapy and the other only received pembrolizumab, according to a press release.
The therapy was found to reduce the risk of melanoma recurrence or death by 49% compared to pembrolizumab alone after a five-year follow-up. (iStock)
The findings revealed that the combination group saw benefits that were “sustained and durable over time.”
Intismeran autogene is designed using mutations identified in a patient’s own tumor, with the intention of teaching the immune system what the cancer looks like so that it can recognize and attack it.
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According to the researchers, intismeran is “well-tolerated” with a “manageable” safety profile.
The most commonly cited side effects of the personalized mRNA vaccine plus KEYTRUDA were fatigue, injection-site pain, chills, fever and headache. The researchers reported no new long-term safety concerns and no severe vaccine-related adverse events.
The combination therapy is currently being evaluated in a phase 3 study — the final confirmation stage.
Patients with late-stage melanoma have a “significant risk” of cancer recurrence, according to an expert. (iStock)
In a Merck press release from January, Kyle Holen, MD, Moderna’s senior vice president and head of development, oncology and therapeutics, noted that this data highlights the “potential of a prolonged benefit … in patients with resected high-risk melanoma.”
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“We continue to invest in our platform in oncology because of encouraging outcomes like these, which illustrate mRNA’s potential in cancer care,” he said.
Dr. Marjorie Green, senior vice president and head of oncology, global clinical development at Merck Research Laboratories, also commented that for many patients with stage 3 or 4 melanoma, there is a “significant risk of recurrence following surgery.”
Researchers confirmed that the combination therapy is currently being evaluated in a phase 3 study. (iStock)
“As such, demonstrating the longer-term potential of intismeran autogene and KEYTRUDA to reduce the risk of recurrence for certain patients with melanoma is a meaningful milestone,” she said.
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The company cited encouraging five-year follow-up data and pointed to upcoming late-stage INTerpath trial results with Moderna in several hard-to-treat cancers.
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An accidental lab discovery has opened the door to entirely new ways of preventing the flu.
While investigating how influenza replicates, researchers discovered that different flu strains use completely different strategies to infiltrate human cells, SWNS reported.
By targeting the specific molecules the viruses rely on, scientists found that they could block them from entering new cells and halt their replication altogether.
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Researchers say these “fundamental insights” into seasonal influenza highlight a clear path toward developing better preventive medications.
“The hope is that fundamental, curiosity-based research like this helps to pave the way for novel strategies to treat and prevent influenza infections,” principal investigator Dr. Emily Bruce, from the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine, said in the SWNS report.
While investigating how influenza replicates, researchers discovered that different flu strains use completely different strategies to infiltrate human cells. (iStock)
While several flu strains cause illness, H1N1 and H3N2 influenza A viruses are the most common. However, current flu tests cannot differentiate between them, and clinical treatments are identical for both.
Although vaccines and antivirals are available, Bruce noted a “dire” need for better medications to stop the virus from spreading cell to xxcell.
“You don’t get sick when a virus is in one cell,” he noted. “You get sick because a virus replicates itself and goes into many more cells.”
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The study, which was published in The Journal of Virology, originally aimed to map how viral RNA segments are transported within cells to create new viral particles.
The team used H1N1 and H3N2 viruses isolated from the nasal passages of positive patients in 2022.
Clinical treatments remain identical for both primary strains of the flu virus. (iStock)
During the investigation, the team unexpectedly stumbled upon a cellular pathway that blocked the virus from entering lung cells, SWNS reported.
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The data revealed that when a specific human protein called Rab11B was depleted, H3N2 viruses failed to enter human lung cells. H1N1 viruses were completely unaffected.
Using reverse genetics, the team mapped this defect and uncovered a brand-new, H3N2-specific role for Rab11B during viral entry.
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This discovery challenged the scientific assumption that all flu viruses enter cells the same way.
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“Viruses are like pirates from different countries hijacking someone’s ship,” Bruce said. “Different viruses, like different types of pirates, use different methods to get onboard.”
This discovery challenged the scientific assumption that all flu viruses enter cells the same way. (iStock)
“We had previously thought that all flu viruses used the same way to get into a cell, but we discovered that this is not true,” she went on. “H1N1 and H3N2 need different proteins to get in, and if you get rid of the right protein, a specific virus can’t get in.”
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While these findings identify a critical cellular pathway for viral entry, the study was conducted using isolated cells, the researchers acknowledged.
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Further research is needed to determine whether blocking the protein is safe and effective within a live, complex human respiratory system.
Bruce and the team hope to conduct further research to determine whether this Rab11B-dependency is a fundamental property of H3N2, or if it’s a trait unique to currently circulating flu strains.
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Eating processed meat like ham, sausage and bacon may be linked to a higher risk of certain types of cancer, according to new research.
While health organizations have already confirmed that processed meat can contribute to colon cancer, this study looked closer at cancers in the upper digestive tract, where the link has historically been less clear.
To understand these connections, researchers from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC), one of the world’s largest long-term nutrition and cancer cohorts, tracked the health and diets of 450,112 people across Europe for an average of 14 years.
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The study group included 131,426 men and 318,686 women, according to the study’s press release.
During the follow-up period, 876 people developed stomach cancer and 215 people developed esophageal adenocarcinoma, which is cancer of the tube connecting the mouth to the stomach.
For female participants, eating both processed meat and white meat was linked to an increased risk of developing the disease. (iStock)
Researchers tracked where the stomach cancers grew, separating them into the upper part of the stomach near the throat and the lower part of the stomach.
The researchers also sorted the tumors into two categories based on how the cancer cells appeared under a microscope: intestinal, which forms more organized structures, and diffuse, in which the cells are more scattered throughout the tissue.
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After adjusting for other lifestyle factors, the researchers found that for every extra 30 grams of processed meat a person ate per day, their overall risk of stomach cancer went up by 9%. Eating that same extra 30 grams a day was also linked to a 13% higher risk of esophageal adenocarcinoma.
A standard single slice of regular deli-sliced ham or lunch meat averages around 28 grams, according to USDA data and nutritional tracking databases.
An extra 20 grams of white meat, such as chicken and turkey, was linked to a 12% higher risk of cancer in the main body of the stomach. (iStock)
An extra 20 grams of white meat, such as chicken or turkey, was linked to a 12% higher risk of cancer in the main body of the stomach, the researchers noted.
The study also revealed differences between men and women. For male participants, only processed meat showed a clear, statistically significant link to a higher risk of stomach cancer. For female participants, however, eating both processed meat and white meat was linked to an increased risk.
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These findings align with global health benchmarks, particularly those established by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer.
The agency has long classified processed meat as a known human carcinogen, primarily due to its strong, well-documented links to colorectal cancer.
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However, health organizations have also consistently pointed to a potential, yet less definitive, relationship between these meats and cancers of the stomach.
Eating 30 grams of processed meat a day, or the equivalent to one slice of ham, was linked to a 13% higher risk of esophageal adenocarcinoma. (iStock)
Further scientific investigation is needed to confirm the findings and to account for other underlying risk factors, such as certain stomach infections, which could interact with dietary habits.
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A key limitation of the study is its reliance on self-reported diets, which can sometimes lead to inaccuracies in how participants recall their meat consumption over time, the researchers noted.
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The findings were published in the International Journal of Cancer.
Fox News Digital reached out to the researchers requesting comment.
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