Microbiota and irritable bowel syndrome

Abstract

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a multifactorial disease during which the pathophysiological role of the gut microbiota has been recently highlighted. In almost 20% of the patients, IBS is clearly a post-infectious IBS as a consequence of an acute bacterial gastroenteritis. Some papers have reported an abnormal colonic fermentation in IBS patients that could explain symptoms such as bloating and be one of the factors triggering visceral hypersensitivity. More recently, significant differences in the composition of both the luminal and mucosa-associated microbiota have been reported between both IBS patients and healthy controls and IBS subgroups while some arguments exist for a small intestinal overgrowth in a subset of IBS patients. All these arguments for a deleterious role of the gut microbiota lead to the actual discuss to consider new therapeutic options, including mainly pre- and probiotics and maybe antibiotics.