IBS - Beyond the Bowel: The Meaning of Co-existing Medical Problems

Olafur S. Palsson, Psy.D. and William E. Whitehead, Ph.D.

UNC Center for Functional GI & Motility Disorders

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a disorder that is defined by a specific pattern of gastrointestinal
(GI) symptoms in the absence of abnormal physical findings. The latest diagnostic criteria for IBS --
the Rome II criteria created by an international team of experts -- require that the patient have
abdominal pain for at least 12 weeks within the past 12 months and that the pain meets two of the
following three criteria: it is relieved after bowel movement, associated with change in stool
frequency, or associated with stool form. It is becoming clear, however, that these bowel symptoms
do not tell the whole story of symptoms experienced by IBS patients. People with this disorder
often have many uncomfortable non-gastrointestinal (non-GI) symptoms and other health problems
in addition to their intestinal troubles.

SYMPTOMS ALL OVER THE BODY IN IBS

Several research reports have established that IBS patients report non-bowel symptoms more
frequently than other GI patients and general medical patients. For example, four studies that have
asked IBS patients about a wide variety of body symptoms(1-4) all found headaches (reported by
23-45% of IBS patients), back pain (28-81%), and frequent urination (20-56%) to be unusually
common in individuals with IBS compared to other people. Fatigue (36-63%) and bad breath or
unpleasant taste in the mouth (16-63%) were found in three of these four studies to be more
common among IBS patients, as well.
Furthermore, a large number of other symptoms have been reported to occur with unusually high
frequency in single studies. In our recent systematic review of the medical literature(5), we found a
total 26 different symptoms, that are reported to be more common in IBS patients than comparison
groups in at least one study. Non-gastrointestinal symptoms more common in irritable bowel
syndrome patients than in comparison groups(5).
1. Headache
2. Dizziness
3. Heart palpitations or racing heart
4. Back pain
5. Shortness of breath
6. Muscle ache
7. Frequent urinating
8. Difficulty urinating
9. Sensitivity to heat or cold
10. Constant tiredness
11. Pain during intercourse (sex)
 12. Trembling hands
13. Sleeping difficulties
14. Bad breath/unpleasant taste in mouth
15. Grinding your teeth
16. Jaw pain
17. Flushing of your face and neck
18. Dry mouth
19. Weak or wobbly legs
20. Scratchy throat
21. Tightness or pressure in chest
22. Low sex drive
23. Poor appetite
24. Eye pain
25. Stiff muscles
26. Eye twitching

OVERLAP WITH OTHER MEDICAL CONDITIONS

Results from numerous studies (reviewed by Whitehead, Palsson & Jones, 2002(5)) also indicate that
IBS overlaps or co-exists more often than would be expected with other medical conditions that
appear to have little logical connection with the gut. The most researched example of such an
overlap is the co-existence of IBS with fibromyalgia, a disorder characterized by widespread muscle
pain. Fibromyalgia affects an estimated 2% of the general population, but 28-65% of IBS patients
have the disorder. Similar results are obtained when this overlap is examined the opposite way, by
studying fibromyalgia patients and looking for IBS -- 32-77% of fibromyalgia patients have IBS.
Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is another medical condition that has been found to have many
times the expected co-occurrence with IBS. CFS is thought to affect only 0.4% of the general
population, but it has been reported in 14% of IBS patients. Conversely, 35- 92% of chronic fatigue
syndrome patients have IBS. Other conditions documented in multiple studies to have excess
overlap with IBS are temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJ), found in 16-25% of IBS patients(2,6),
and chronic pelvic pain (35% of IBS patients(7). In addition to these well established relationships,
many other medical conditions appear (judging from single study reports) to have an excess
overlap with IBS, although the frequencies of most of them in IBS are much lower than for the
disorders already discussed. In fact, we recently(8) compared the frequencies of a broad range of
diagnoses in the medical records of 3153 IBS patients in a large health maintenance organization in
the U.S. Northwest to an equal number of non-GI patients in the same HMO, and found that the IBS
patients had a higher frequency of almost half of all non-GI diagnoses, or 64 of the 136 sampled
diagnoses.
In summary, non-GI symptoms and co-existing medical problems seen in many IBS patients far
exceed what is typical for medical patients or GI patients in general. This raises important questions
about what causes this phenomenon and what the implications are for IBS patients.

WHAT EXPLAINS NON-GI SYMPTOMS AND CO-EXISTENCE OF OTHER DISORDERS IN

IBS?
There are several possible explanations for the preponderance of general symptoms and disorders
in IBS. Our research group is engaged in several research studies that may help shed some light on
this mystery, but it is still too early to come to definitive conclusions. We will list here some of the
possible explanations, and discuss relevant data coming from work by our team and other
investigators.

1. A common physical cause? One explanation for the high rates of co-existing symptoms and
conditions in IBS patients would be that there is something biologically wrong in IBS patients that
also cause other symptoms or conditions. There are a number of distinct physiological
characteristics or "abnormalities" seen in many IBS patients, although none of them are found in all
IBS patients. These include: heightened pain sensitivity in the gut, increased intestinal contractions
(motility) or hyper-reactivity in response to meals or stress (too much movement of the intestines -
this is the reason why IBS was called spastic colon in the past), patterns of dysfunction in the
autonomic nervous system (that part of the nervous system that helps regulate our inner body
functions), and vague signs of immune activation seen in some IBS patients. Although one could
suggest ways in which these physiological abnormalities would play a role in some other disorders
that co-exist with IBS, there is little evidence so far of a common pattern of physical abnormality
that could link IBS and its most common coexisting conditions and symptoms. Patterns of
autonomic dysfunction in IBS are not like the ones seen in fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue
syndrome, for example. And, fibromyalgia patients do not show the same gut pain sensitivity as
IBS patients, while conversely, IBS patients do not show the pain-sensitive tender points that are
characteristic of fibromyalgia(9-10). Furthermore, as can be seen from reviewing the symptom list in
Table 1, the non-GI symptoms that plague IBS patients are so varied and cover so many different
organ systems, that it would be hard to identify a specific biological connection between them. On
the contrary, it seems like the only overall commonality between these symptoms may be that they
are non-specific - they are, in other words, not clear symptoms of any identifiable disease processes
or diagnosable disorders. Indeed, the symptoms that are most common among IBS patients are
generally those that are also common in the general healthy population - they just tend to occur at a
higher level in people with IBS.

2. Physical expression of emotional discomfort?

Another possible explanation for the high number of non-GI symptoms and disorders in IBS
patients is the tendency to translate strong emotions into physical symptoms. This is sometimes
called somatization ("soma" is the Greek word for "body" and somatization therefore literally means
"to express in the body"). All people "somatize" to some degree; it is normal to feel butterflies in
your stomach, to blush or go pale, get a lump in your throat, or feel the heart beating in your chest
when you get very emotional. Shaky hands, stiff neck or excess sweating are likewise quite
ordinary when people are under a great deal of stress. However, some people are more vulnerable
than others to letting negative emotions express themselves physically. This is often thought to be
an alternative and less healthy way of exhibiting or feeling emotional discomfort. Some people may
develop a strong tendency to do this because they have a basic personality trait that shies away
from interpersonal expressiveness. For others, it could be the result of growing up in the care of
strict, repressive or abusive parents or caretakers, where normal expression of negative emotions
was not allowed or would have been dangerous. Getting a headache or a stomach ache may be an
alternative way to "give voice" to negative emotions under such circumstances. It seems that
excessive habitual suppression of ordinary verbal and emotional expressions of negative emotions,
regardless of the reason for it, may lead to the tendency to somatize. There is evidence that this
tendency may be at work in IBS, at least among some women with the disorder. Dr. Brenda Toner
has found in two studies(11-12) that women with IBS score higher than depressed women and
healthy women on questionnaires measuring of the tendency to avoid the expression of negative
emotions or views.

3. Learned over-attention to body symptoms and excess disease attribution?

All people ignore most of the sensations from their bodies most of the time. This is necessary so that
we are not overwhelmed by the vast amount of information our senses supply to our brains every
moment of our lives. For example, if you are reading this sitting down, you have probably not been
at all aware of the sensations of the seat under your body until right now. Our brains constantly sift
through the mass of incoming body information and decide what is important for us to become
consciously aware of, based on such things as our past experiences and how likely the information
is to indicate a threat to our health or well-being. Most minor symptoms (those that might be
uncomfortable and bothersome if they would get our attention), are simply dismissed in our busy
everyday lives, because other things win out in the moment-to-moment competition for our limited
attention resources. More frequent attention to mild physical symptoms can be learned, however,
and can become a habit. As with most things, such habitual over-attention is probably most easily
learned in childhood. It would seem reasonable, for example, that a child could get into the habit of
noticing physical symptoms more if his or her parents are always talking about their own
symptoms. We have recently found(13) that the more medical problems the parents in the
childhood home had, the more general physical symptoms adult IBS patients report. The possible
consequence of a childhood where the child grew up with parents or others who were seriously ill,
is a tendency to interpret common normal physical sensations as symptoms of serious illness. Such
a serious view of symptoms can also be modeled after the parent's approach to common illness. Dr.
Whitehead and colleagues found in a telephone survey of 832 adults 20 years ago(14) that people
whose parents paid more attention to cold or flu symptoms in childhood were more likely to view
such symptoms as serious in adulthood and to visit doctors for them. They were also more likely to
have IBS diagnosis. Evidence that IBS patients interpret physical sensations differently than others
is emerging from brain imaging studies. This type of research takes a "snapshot" of the amount of
activity in different parts of the brain in response to sensations, using techniques such as PET scans
(positron emission tomography) and fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging). By examining
which parts of the brain react the most to painful sensations, it is possible to deduce to some degree
how the brain processes the information. In one such study, by Silverman and colleagues(15), IBS
patients but not control subjects reacted to physical sensations from a painful balloon inflation in
the rectum with increased blood flow in the left prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain known to
process personally threatening information. In contrast, this study and others(16-17) found that IBS
patients do not show activity in the anterior cingulate cortex that is indicative of general discomfort
in healthy subjects. IBS patients are also more likely to respond to physical stimuli in the GI tract by
activating brain centers that handle emotional events. Collectively, this suggests that IBS patients
may process body information associated with bowel sensations (and perhaps other physical
sensations, as well) differently than other people, interpreting them as personally threatening and
more emotionally relevant events rather than just ordinary discomfort. Such different
interpretations of physical sensations would also explain hyper-attention to such sensations.

4. Faulty neurological filtering?

After entering the spine (the information highway from the body to the brain), information destined
for the brain about body pain is sent along nerves through gates that control how much of this
information passes through. Our brains continually send signals down these spinal gates to cause
them to block signals that are of too low intensity to provide valuable information (you do not want
to constantly know about all of your minor aches and discomforts from regular body activity). This
is one of the ways the brain uses to limit the vast amounts of information constantly streaming in
from millions of nerve sensors throughout our bodies. A current popular hypothesis in the field of
IBS research is that an inadequate amount of this "descending inhibition" of incoming pain
information is, at least partly, to blame for the hypersensitivity to intestinal discomfort and pain
seen in IBS patients. Some researchers have further suggested that the same kind of slack traffic
control could be more widespread in IBS patients and may explain the observed proneness to
headaches, back pain or muscle aches. People who have more open pain gates because of faulty
inhibition would theoretically be like the princess in "The Princess and the Pea." who could feel a
pea through 20 mattresses. The problem with this as an explanation for symptom overabundance
among IBS patients is that it would explain only excess in pain-type symptoms, which are just one
of many types of overabundant symptoms in IBS. There are also no direct data on IBS patients to
prove how valid this view is.
5. Result of greater psychological distress?
As was explained earlier, it is normal for people who are emotionally distressed to experience more
physical symptoms. At least half of IBS patients who have consulted doctors have been diagnosed
with an affective ("emotional") disorder - generally either depression or an anxiety disorder.
Additionally, many people with IBS who have no affective disorder diagnosis have significant
symptoms of anxiety and depression. One might, therefore, ask whether the physical symptoms
reported could simply be a side effect of psychological distress.
We have addressed this question in two studies presented at the 2003 Annual Meeting of the
American Gastroenterological Association(18-19). In the HMO data mentioned earlier (18), we
found that having a psychological diagnosis was associated with increased numbers of physical
diagnoses that these IBS patients had received (from an average of 7.1 to 9.7). However, we also
found that even patients with no psychiatric diagnosis had more physical diagnoses per person
than the other HMO patients (7.5 vs. 5.5), so the presence of psychological problems is not the
whole answer. In the other study(19), we examined the relationship between depression and
anxiety scores of 795 people with IBS and the number of physical symptoms they had experienced
over the past month.

Statistical methods that estimate how much of the variability in one measured characteristic can be
explained by other measured factors tell us that the psychological symptoms roughly accounted for
25-30% of physical symptoms of these people. In short, psychological distress is almost certainly
part of the explanation for greater body symptoms in IBS, but not nearly the whole story.
Further research will have to determine which of the above explanations are applicable in IBS, but it
is likely that more than one of them, and maybe some other factors unrecognized so far, work
together to account for the high frequency of symptoms and disorders that co-exist with IBS.

THE IMPACT OF EXTRA PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS AND DISORDERS ON IBS PATIENTS.

What do these extra ("non-IBS") symptoms and co-existing medical conditions mean in practical
terms for patients with IBS? The first thing to note is that not all IBS patients experience additional
health problems and symptoms, so it is not a concern for all people with IBS. For those who do,
however, symptoms and disorders beyond the bowel can add measurably to the overall burden of
illness for the individual and also lead to greater health care needs and health care costs for IBS
patients.

It is by now well established that IBS patients visit doctors more than the general population. Only
recently has it been recognized, howver, that most of the extra health care visits that people with
IBS make are not for their bowel problems. Levy et al.(20) reported that IBS patients had about
twice as many doctor visits compared to other patients in the same HMO, but they found that 78%
of the additional visits were due to problems other than IBS. It seems quite likely that these extra
non-GI doctor visits of IBS patients are due to the tendency to experience more general body
symptoms over time, based on study results we presented at the Annual Meeting of the American
Gastroenterological Association last year(21). Using a scale asking patients about the 26 physical
symptoms in Table 1, we found that those IBS patients who report an unusually high number of
these symptoms over the past month missed six times as many days from school or work due to
illness compared to those with low or moderate (normal) symptoms. The "high-symptom" IBS
patients also had twice as many doctor visits and more hospital days, and their quality of life was
furthermore measurably poorer on the average. A general tendency to have a large number of body
symptoms is, therefore, very costly in terms of the IBS patient's overall wellbeing and ability to
function normally in life, and increases substantially the health care costs for these individuals.
These findings clearly underline the need to find a way to help the many IBS patients who score
unusually high on body symptom questionnaires to reduce that tendency.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO REDUCE NON-GI SYMPTOMS IN IBS?

It is unknown to what degree standard medical treatment for IBS, when successful, also results in
improvement in non-GI symptoms. The problem is that most IBS treatment research has not
examined how non-IBS symptoms change. Non-IBS symptoms have also not been a focus of
standard IBS treatment. An exception to this is psychological treatment trials for IBS, which
sometimes have included general physical symptom questionnaires among the measures of
treatment effects. We, therefore, know from our two studies of hypnosis treatment for IBS(22) as
well as from research in England(23) that hypnosis treatment for IBS regularly improves non-GI
symptoms substantially in addition to its beneficial effects on bowel symptoms. Less is known
about improvement in non-GI symptoms from cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), which is the
other widely researched psychological treatment for IBS. However, there is every reason to believe
that CBT can reduce the tendency to experience a lot of general physical symptoms, based on a
review of over 30 such treatment studies(24). These benefits of psychological treatment for IBS point
to extra value of such treatments for the subgroup of IBS patients who have many non-GI
symptoms.

Research in coming years will hopefully identify other ways to improve the well-being and life
functioning of IBS patients by reducing non-GI symptoms. This is likely to become an integral part
of managing IBS effectively in the subset of patients who suffer many symptoms and conditions
beyond the bowel.

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