[Clinical symptoms, psychopathology and intestinal motility in patients with "irritable bowel"]

Recent investigations of pathogenesis of the irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) either suggested psychopathology as the cause of bowel symptoms or proposed abnormalities in colonic motor and myoelectrical activity. Therefore, we prospectively compared clinical symptoms, personality traits, subjective stress reports, and motor and myoelectrical activity of the sigmoid colon and rectum in patients with IBS, patients with lactose malabsorption (LMA) who had not consulted a doctor for bowel complaints, and normal subjects. It could be shown that neither colonic activity nor stress distinguished patients with IBS from those with LMA. Patients with IBS exhibited significantly more clinical symptoms and psychopathology than patients with LMA and normal subjects. These findings suggest that psychopathology does not cause the symptoms or results from bowel dysfunctions but determines who will consult a doctor for bowel complaints.