Nutritional Management of Irritable Bowel Syndrome

TL;DR

This paper reviews how different diets can help manage IBS symptoms, focusing on evidence for their effectiveness and recommendations for use.

Contribution

A comprehensive review of dietary interventions for IBS, evaluating their scientific rationale and clinical effectiveness.

Findings

Traditional dietary advice improves symptoms in about half of IBS patients.

The low-FODMAP diet is effective for symptom relief and is now recommended in clinical guidelines.

The Mediterranean diet shows potential benefits beyond symptom relief for IBS.

Abstract

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a common gastrointestinal disorder characterized by recurrent abdominal pain and altered bowel habits that significantly impair patients’ quality of life. Dietary triggers of IBS symptoms are common, and consequently, diet-based treatments are often prescribed. We conducted a review of current evidence on dietary interventions for IBS, focusing specifically on the evaluation of the scientific rationale and effectiveness of the most commonly adopted diets. Clinical trials and guideline recommendations were analyzed to assess each diet’s efficacy in symptom relief and patient adherence. Traditional dietary advice, although not a structured diet, but rather a set of lifestyle and dietary recommendations, is commonly recommended as first-line therapy and provides a solid base for symptom improvement in almost half of patients with IBS. Conversely, the low-FODMAP diet is a strict dietary pattern characterized first by the exclusion and then by the gradual and personalized reintroduction of several foods. Several clinical trials have demonstrated the efficacy of a low-FODMAP diet in reducing global IBS symptoms, and due to the established evidence, it is now incorporated into many clinical guidelines as a second- or even first-line approach for patients with IBS. Limited data supports the starch- and sucrose-reduced diet as an option for symptom relief, with evidence stemming from the relatively recent finding of hypomorphic variants of the sucrose-isomaltase gene in a subset of patients with IBS. Nonetheless, its application in clinical practice is still very limited. Data on gluten-free diet is more controversial as although it may benefit a subset of patients with IBS, strong evidence is still lacking for identifying the best candidates for a restrictive diet with a high burden in terms of economical, psychological and social costs. Beyond exclusion diets, a few studies on the Mediterranean diet suggest it may be a potential option with benefits that go beyond IBS symptom relief. Overall, dietary modification can significantly alleviate IBS symptoms. Tailoring recommendations to individual patient triggers may further enhance outcomes.