New IBS Guidelines Call for Celiac Disease Screening

The American College of Gastroenterology issued updated guidelines yesterday for management of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). The guidelines, which will appear as a supplement to the January 2009 issue of The American Journal of Gastroenterology, include the following:

IBS patients with diarrhea or a mixture of diarrhea and constipation should be screened with blood tests for celiac disease, a condition in which one cannot tolerate the gluten protein found in wheat and other grains.

Read our article about celiac disease and irritable bowel syndrome to learn why the two conditions can be difficult to tell apart.