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Scientists have a better understanding of how the gut-brain link causes irritable bowel syndrome.

- Nicky Pellegrino

For a long time, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) was poorly understood. Diagnosing it is mostly about tests to eliminate other potential causes for the symptoms, which include abdominal cramps, bloating, constipation and diarrhoea. Treatments are still limited.

Part of the problem has always been that, on the face of it, there appear to be no medical reasons for the gastrointestinal problems that IBS sufferers experience.

"There are a variety of gut conditions where you can see inflammation when tests are done but with irritable bowel syndrome the intestine looks normal," explains Professor Stuart Brierley, an expert in gastrointestinal neuroscience at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute. "So, the question is, what is causing the chronic pain and other symptoms?" IBS is now being recognised as a disorder of gut-brain communication and researchers believe it may be triggered initially by some sort of stomach bug, perhaps an E. coli or salmonella infection, or a norovirus, and that the balance of the microbiome (the colony of bacteria that lives in our gut) plays a role.