Is irritable bowel syndrome more common in patients presenting with bacterial gastroenteritis?
Parry SD; Stansfield R; Jelley D; Gregory W; Phillips E; Barton JR; Welfare MR Northumbria Division, University of Newcastle Faculty of Medicine, North Tyneside Hospital, Rake Lane, North Shields, United Kingdom. OBJECTIVE: Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) has been reported to follow infectious diarrhea. Food-borne infections affect 76 million people in the United States and 9.4 million in England per year; of these, only a small percentage of patients see their doctor, and even fewer will have stool culture confirmation. We hypothesized that patients who present to their doctor with gastroenteritis and have positive stool samples may be different from the normal population with regard to their pre-existing bowel symptoms. Our aim was to determine if patients with bacterial gastroenteritis were more likely to have prior IBS, functional dyspepsia, or functional diarrhea, compared with a control population. METHODS: Between January, 2000 and January, 2001, subjects with stool positive bact
