(Increased risk of irritable bowel syndrome after bacterial gastroenteritis: cohort study)
In the year after a bout of bacterial gastroenteritis patients are ten times more likely to have irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) than the general population, report Luis A Garciá Rodríguez and Ana Ruigómez from the Centro Espa ol de Investigación Farmacoepidemiológica, Madrid in this week's BMJ. According to the authors, these findings are taken from the first epidemiological study of its kind and they say that their results confirm the suspicions of earlier research. They conclude that bacterial gastroenteritis is a major independent risk factor for IBS.
Contact:
Dr Luis A Garciá Rodríguez, Director, Centro Espa ol de Investigación Farmacoepidemiológica, Madrid, Spain lagarcia@ceife.es