Irritable bowel syndrome shares a gene pool with schizophrenia, bipolar illness, depression, and anxiety.
Huila Daily, Health
In the 21st century and despite advances in science, one of the most common conditions among young patients is so-called mental illness; These can be caused by genetic or hereditary factors or by the pressures that are commonly present in people’s daily lives.
A study by the Ministry of Health in Colombia showed that the most prevalent mental illness among Colombians is depression. It is pertinent to bear in mind that these figures also include early childhood. 12.4% get scared or nervous for no reason, 9.7% have frequent headaches, 2.3% have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
The most common disorders among adolescents are anxiety, social phobia and depression, with 6.6% presenting suicidal thoughts (7.4% in females and 5.7% in males). On average, alcohol and other psychoactive substance use begins at age 13, increasing the risk of developing mental illness at an early age. On the other hand, among adults, the lifetime prevalence of affective disorders is 6.7%.
Genetic link between irritable bowel syndrome and some mental illnesses
New research has identified genetic correlations between patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and psychiatric disorders such as bipolar disorder.
Using new statistical methods developed at the Norment Centre, post doc Marcos Tesfaye from the University of Bergen and the University of Oslo has revealed thousands of genetic variants shared between different psychiatric disorders and IBS-patients.
The discovery sheds new light on the brain-gut axis and is a new step toward finding an effective treatment for IBS. Irritable bowel syndrome shares a gene pool with schizophrenia, bipolar illness, depression, and anxiety.
IBS is a gastrointestinal disease that affects approximately 10 percent of the world’s population. Symptoms range from abdominal pain, constipation, and diarrhea, and the disease often causes a poor quality of life.
“It is also considered psychosomatic, because doctors do not find any evidence of pathology when examining the intestines,” explained study author Marcos Tesfaye.
Using data from more than 50,000 IBS patients and hundreds of thousands of controls and new statistical methods, the researchers were able to identify 116 new genomic risk loci for IBS. Genomic loci are specific locations within a DNA sequence that often contain a set of variants.
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In addition, they identified 70 unique loci that are shared between IBS and various psychiatric disorders: seven with generalized anxiety disorder, 35 with major depression, 27 with bipolar disease, and 15 with schizophrenia.
They also found that several loci related to IBS are also involved in regulating the nervous system.
“This expands our understanding of the genetics of IBS and where IBS is found in relation to gastroenterological and psychiatric diseases,” said the researcher.
“Some researchers have reported that inflammation in the gut may lead to disruption of the intestinal barrier and leakage of bacterial products into the circulation, which in turn may reduce the permeability of the blood-brain barrier and thus affect the brain.” could.” Tesfaye added.
Although irritable bowel is usually not a serious condition, it is important to seek proper advice from a professional, whether mental or otherwise, to prevent it from getting worse or causing other pathologies in the future.
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