Thanks, hadn't refreshed the page from an earlier visit so missed the intervening updates before I posted. The new study looks much better, though not as compelling as the authors imply
Here's the abstract
[I've calculated the relevant numbers in square brackets to match the given percentages]
A few comments:
- Although the sample of 112 IBS patients is quite large, they were IBS patients who had been given an upper GI endoscopy so may well not be representative of IBS patients in general.
- Most IBS patients (62%) did not have SIBO
- As others have pointed out, correlation is not causation
Given that IBS is often cited as another 'Functional Somatic Syndrome' it would be nice to nail it to a gut bacteria problem but this research isn't strong enough to do that.
However, using the data above, compared with the other endoscopy patients IBS patients had an
Odds Ratio of 5.6 of having SIBO (95% CI 3.1-10.3, my calcs, PM me if you want the spreadsheet). Such a high Odds Ratio is rare and does suggest something important is going on.