Shiha, Mohamed G, Aziz, Imran · Alimentary pharmacology & therapeutics · 2021 · DOI
This review examines how irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) commonly occurs alongside other physical and mental health conditions, particularly chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, anxiety, and depression. Patients with IBS often experience symptoms beyond the digestive system that significantly impact their quality of life and healthcare costs. The authors discuss why these conditions cluster together and suggest better ways to manage patients who have multiple conditions at once.
ME/CFS patients frequently experience IBS and other comorbidities, and understanding the shared biological mechanisms may illuminate why these conditions cluster together. This review highlights that recognizing and appropriately managing multiple concurrent conditions—rather than treating each in isolation—is critical for improving patient outcomes and reducing unnecessary medical burden.
This review does not establish causal relationships between IBS and comorbid conditions, nor does it definitively prove that shared mechanisms are responsible for their co-occurrence. As a narrative review rather than a systematic analysis of primary data, it does not provide quantitative evidence of prevalence rates or treatment efficacy.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
Spotted an error in this entry? Report it →