Original ResearchFull Report: Clinical—Alimentary TractA Diet Low in FODMAPs Reduces Symptoms of Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Section snippets
Participants
Patients with IBS according to Rome III criteria15 and healthy controls without gastrointestinal symptoms were recruited between April 2009 and June 2011 via advertisements in breath testing centers, community newspapers, and through word of mouth. Exclusion criteria comprised exclusion of celiac disease by duodenal biopsy and/or negative celiac serologic testing while consuming a gluten-rich diet and/or negative HLA-DQ2/DQ8 for IBS patients, previous abdominal surgery, and comorbid conditions
Participants
Forty-five participants were recruited for the study. Seven participants (3 IBS and 4 healthy controls) quit the study before commencing their second diet and were excluded from analysis. Six of these 7 participants were female, with a median age of 28 years (interquartile range [IQR], 21–29 y), body mass index of 23.6 (IQR, 20.3–25.4), and none of them had undergone previous breath testing for fructose malabsorption. Five participants exited the study because the study protocol was too
Discussion
Despite the growing popularity of the low FODMAP diet, efficacy data in unselected patients with IBS in which the effect of the diet on gastrointestinal symptoms is compared in a randomized, blinded manner with that of diet containing typical amounts of FODMAPs has been lacking. The results of the current study provide high-quality data to fill that gap. As highlighted by Figure 1, symptoms were more than halved in IBS subjects and all measured symptoms were reduced to a level that arguably is
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Gina Dimitrakopoulos and Debbie King (Monash University) for their assistance with food preparation and packaging; Kelly Liels, Ourania Rosella, and Rosemary Rose (Monash University) for analysis of FODMAP content of meals; Alicia Moltzen (Monash University) for analysis of breath samples; and Minfeng Deng and Chu Kion Yao (Monash University) for statistical analysis.
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Author names in bold designate shared co-first authorship.
Conflicts of interest These authors disclose the following: Susan Shepherd has published a book on food intolerances and several cookbooks related to the topic of the article, and Peter Gibson has published a book on food intolerances. The remaining authors disclose no conflicts.
Funding This study was supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, the Eva and Les Erdi Foundation, and by a scholarship from the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University (E.P.H.).