Irritable bowel syndrome

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Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a chronic disorder, featuring recurrent abdominal pain and intermittent diarrhoea, often alternating with constipation. There is normally no obvious cause.

This disorder most commonly affects people between the ages of 20 and 30 and is twice as common in women as in men. The syndrome can be divided into four types depending on which is the main symptom - abdominal pain, diarrhoea, constipation or diarrhoea alternating with constipation. IBS is known by a variety of other terms: spastic colon, spastic colitis, mucous colitis, nervous diarrhoea, nervous colon and nervous or functional bowel. Some of these names misrepresent the condition.

The syndrome is not the same as Ulcerative Colitis. Colitis is an inflammation of the colon, whereas in IBS, the colon is not inflamed.

IBS is very common and is present in perhaps 60% of patients that see a specialist in gastroenterology.

The incidence (frequency) of the condition in the general population is estimated to lie somewhere between 10 and 20 per cent. The true incidence may be higher than this, because it is thought that many people with IBS symptoms do not seek medical advice.