Does diet affect IBS?
Ask experts if diet affects irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and you’ll get a definite “maybe.” Many IBS patients are afraid to eat certain foods for fear of triggering symptoms. But as Brian Lacy, MD, director of the Marvin M. Schuster Center for Digestive and Motility Disorders at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore, Md., noted, “It’s generally not what you eat but the act of eating that cause the symptoms.” Besides, he continued, there are no good studies showing that dietary changes do anything to improve IBS. Gastroenterologist Douglas A. Drossman, FACP, co-director of the University of North Carolina Center for Functional Gastrointestinal and Motility Disorders at Chapel Hill, however, said there is good evidence that eating too much of certain foods—those that contain caffeine or a lot of fat, for instance, or those that trigger gas production—can activate the bowel and worsen IBS symptoms. Patients with IBS are prone to excessive gut reactions to stressors, he point
