Rome Foundation Working Team Publishes Comprehensive Report of Gut Microflora and FGIDs
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It is increasingly recognized that gut microbiota alterations may be of relevance for patients with functional bowel disorders. This is supported by the fact that:
- A proportion of these patients have altered gut microbiota composition.
- Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth has been proposed to be of relevance for subgroups of patients with IBS.
- Pro- and antibiotics seem to be effective for subgroups of patients with IBS.
This research field has expanded dramatically during recent years, which has been made possible by the rapid method development with the appearance of non-culture dependent techniques to determine gut microbiota composition. However, this is an area where the relevance of some of the research findings has been heavily debated, and the clinical relevance is not yet determined. Therefore, the Rome Foundation in 2010 initiated a Working Team Committee, “The Role of the Intestinal Microbiota in the Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders”, and the work of this group has just been finalized. A summary of the work of this group is available in a recent publication in the “Recent Series in Clinical Practice” series in Gut.
Moreover, besides the journal article, a very extensive background document is available as online supplementary material on the Gut Website.