Alison Jazwinski presented a paper from Gastroenterology by Saulnier et al (PMID: 21741921) describing differences in the microbiome between children with irritable bowel syndrome and healthy controls. While there was no indication of small bowel overgrowth in children with IBD, this study indicated that amounts of certain populations of bacteria (such as Haemophilus, which represented 0.07% vs 0.89% of microbiota in healthy vs IBS patients) are found to be different in children with and without IBS. Our conversation centered around the emerging story of the microbiome and its relevance to GI health. While this area does not have direct implications for clinical care yet, it is potentially paradigm-shifting in how we consider the impacts of the networks of organisms that live in the GI tract on human health.
We mentioned the accompanying paper on the microbiome in adults by Rajlilic-Stojanovic et al (PMID 21820992) and that reference can be found here through the AGA website.
