Active clinical trials for "Irritable Bowel Syndrome"

Constipation is a common condition in which an individual suffers with hard stools which are infrequent and difficult to pass. It is poorly understood and treatment is often unsatisfactory. Many patients also experience pain whilst others do not but it is unclear why . It is believed that the pain arises from contractions in the colon, the lower part of the intestines. Some patients with constipation have weak colonic contraction but surprisingly some, particularly those with a lot of pain have strong contractions which are poorly coordinated. These patients all suffer from constipation but would are likely to need very different treatments. At present we cannot identify what type of abnormality of colonic contractions each individual patient suffers from and so are unable to give them the best treatment. This study will take advantage of two new techniques which have been recently developed. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) which will allow us to see the contractions of the colon in response to a dose of the laxative Moviprep which increases the flow of fluid into the proximal part of the colon and High Resolution Manometry (HRM) which measures the power and direction of the contraction in much more detail than ever before using a pressure sensing catheter placed into the bowel. Using these 2 techniques we will identify the pattern of contractions in 80 patients with constipation and 40 healthy controls. Participants will then enter into a controlled trial of either a drug which stimulates contractions or one which inhibits contraction. We anticipate that the pattern of contractions identified by the non-invasive MRI technique will predict which treatment will reduce their symptoms most as effectively as the more invasive HRM. If this is the case then our MRI test of colonic responsiveness could become widely used in routine clinical practice

The objective of this study is to evaluate the long-term safety and efficacy of linaclotide in post-marketing use.

Our previous work on the use of probiotics improved the clinical symptoms in irritable bowel syndrome with constipation-predominant. This study would like to explore further use of probiotics in the immune system of the patients with irritable bowel syndrome.

The main objective of this observatory is to evaluate the effect of Bifidobacterium longum 35624 on the quality of life of IBS patients having different subtypes of transit pattern and different level of symptom severity

Butyrate has recently gained attention as an important microbial compound in human colon health. Several diseases, including Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), have been linked with a loss of butyrate in the colon resulting in the hypothesis that butyrate is important for disease resistance. However, despite a plethora of preclinical evidence about butyrate's role in colon health, data from human studies are insufficient, largely due to the lack of available tools for colon-specific butyrate delivery and sampling. This project will elucidate butyrate's mode of action in the human colon and its implications for gut functioning in IBS and healthy participants by employing a unique in vivo human setting. Specifically, the regulatory capacity of butyrate on intestinal barrier function and the transcriptional host responses that are associated with an increase of butyrate in the colon will be determined. Moreover, butyrate's role as a signalling molecule for gut hormones and serotonin release will be studied.

The purpose of this research study is to improve the understanding of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and its underlying cause. The investigators will use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to observe differences in the brain between people diagnosed with IBS compared to healthy controls and people with ulcerative colitis, a disease group that has already been characterized. By doing this correlative and comparative study, the investigators hope to gain knowledge on IBS in order to keep the field moving in the right direction and becoming one step closer to discovering effective treatments.

The study aims to investigate if a 7 day therapeutic fasting regimen will affect self-efficacy of patients with chronic diseases the effects of fasting on physical and mental well-being, quality of life and body awareness/image the association between patients characteristics and the perceived health benefit after fasting the association between Diagnosis according to traditional Chinese medicine and physical and mental well-being during the course of fasting experiences and perceptions of patients during fasting therapy

RATIONALE: A substantial proportion of children and teenagers with suspected inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) referred for endoscopy do not have the disease. The investigators designed a clinical decision rule that included a calprotectin stool test to discern which patients require further investigations. The accuracy of this diagnostic strategy is 88.5% with a low risk of missing IBD cases. Although the number of negative endoscopies was reduced after introduction of this strategy, still 22% of the referred children and teenagers underwent an unnecessary invasive test. S100A12 (calgranulin C) is a cytoplasmic protein secreted exclusively by activated neutrophils and this stool marker may be more IBD-specific than calprotectin. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether the specificity of S100A12 is superior to the specificity of calprotectin without sacrificing sensitivity HYPOTHESIS: Inclusion of the calgranulin C stool test will improve the specificity of the screening-strategy.

Fecal calprotectin is a very sensitive non-invasive inflammation marker in the detection of inflammatory bowel disease and, to a lesser degree, has also proven to be useful in adenomatous polyps, neoplasias, and infectious gastroenteritis. Elevated calprotectin levels can also be found in patients with lesion only in the upper gastrointestinal tract. However, the diagnostic value of calprotectin has never been tested in this setting. The aim of the study is therefore to determine the diagnostic value of fecal calprotectin in patients with diseases of the upper gastrointestinal tract.

The proposed pilot project for this seed grant focuses on the role of intestinal serine-proteases in the pathogenesis of diarrhea-predominant IBS (D-IBS). In this study we will further assess serine-protease activity in patients with D-IBS and also explore a possible mechanism by which these proteases can lead to alterations in intestinal physiology and symptoms in these patients. The general hypotheses for the proposed research are that (A) the levels of fecal serine-protease in patients with D-IBS are abnormally increased (B) this abnormal serine-protease activity leads to/is associated with an abnormal increase in intestinal permeability and therefore enables (C) chronic stimulation and activation of the mucosal immune system in these patients. In addition, it is aim to determine whither periodontal inflammation is associated with intestinal permeability and serine protease activity.