Very useful research towards the understanding of IBS!
Key quotes below!
Radiologist Ragnhild Unseth of Lovisenberg Hospitalin Oslo has been conducting this research into gut responses to difficult-to-digest foods in IBS using MRI scanning following ingestion of lactulose - an indigestible syrup that is a classic FODMAP.
"if you ask Radiologist Ragnhild Undseth of Lovisenberg Hospital in Oslo whether the problem starts between the ears, HER ANSWER IS EMPHATIC.
“NO," she says. "THIS IS NOT PSYCHOLOGICAL.”
Undseth used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to compare IBS patients and healthy individuals, and has now taken the first pictures that show a difference in the intestines of the two groups."
"Professor Per G. Farup of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology was not involved in this study but has worked IBS patients for years.
He comments:
“This is an important contribution in the discussion about the causes of IBS. THE RESEARCH SHOWS THAT THIS IS AN ORGANIC DISORDER in which patients really react to FODMAP substances,” he says. "
What the MRI images show:
"A clear difference: At left are the intestines of a healthy person and at right those of an irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) patient, 60 minutes after swallowing 10g of lactulose. The white areas show that the person with IBS had accumulated much more fluid in the small intestine than the healthy individual. (Photo: Ragnhild Undseth)"
SOURCE OF QUOTES AND FULL RESEARCH ARTICLE:
sciencenordic.com/first-ima...
Thought people may find this encouraging!
IBS is quite widely - although sadly not universally - accepted as caused by nerve dysfunctions so of neurological origin.
But like with ME, in the past - and still now in part - the psychosomatic theorists have attempted to erroneously claim IBS is psychological rather than neurological.
Now, though, the gut is showing physiological as well as neurological abnormalities in this research.
This is increasing the important evidence that proves that it's the body (and brain); not the mind that's implicated in IBS!
Bye for now,
Starbys 
