A new study published in the journal Gut found that individuals who suffer from Irritable bowel syndrome—often just abbreviated to IBS—can reduce their risk of the affliction if they follow three out of five important behaviors.
However, before getting into all the details of the study, it is important to look at how IBS can affect someone suffering from the disease. IBS is an issue with a person’s digestive system and it has many difficult symptoms.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, an uncomfortable gastrointestinal tract is the most common of the disease’s symptoms. But you could also suffer from different kinds that lead to mixed bowel habits, constipation, or bad diarrhea.
As was already noted, IBS is very common. It’s so common in fact that experts believe as many as ten to fifteen percent of the adults in the United States are suffering from a form of IBS yet only five to seven percent are treated.
IBS can be triggered by common causes such as problematic foods or the beginning of a woman’s cycle. But stress is one of the biggest causes, which is why working to be as stress-free as possible is critical for some.
However, there are a few other ways to avoid triggering a flare that you could consider a type of preventative measure and they were outlined in the new study that revealed one can mitigate IBS by doing a few major things.
There are five healthy behaviors that can prevent IBS in people, these indluce: getting a good night’s sleep, not smoking, ensuring you get enough exercise, lowering the amount of alcohol you drink, and eating a healthy diet.
You don’t actually even need to do all of these things either. Researchers showed that if you cover three out of the five healthy habits then you can reduce your risk of IBS by at least 42% according to The Guardian’s analysis.
Unfortunately, you don’t get to pick the three behaviors that work best. The researchers noted that not smoking, getting seven hours of sleep, and getting intense exercise may have been the most effective way to mitigate IBS.
Just how effective were these behavioral interventions? Well, those who did not smoke had a 14% less chance of developing IBS and those who exercised a lot lowered their risk by 17%. Good sleep lowered the risk by 27%.
Adopting just one healthy behavior could reduce the risk of IBS by 21% according to a press release on the study while adopting two increased that figure to 36%, all of which were benefits unaffected by factors like age or family history.
“Our findings underscore the value of lifestyle modification in the primary prevention of IBS and suggest that healthy lifestyle choices could significantly attenuate the effects of aetiological factors on the incidence of IBS,” the researchers wrote.
Data from the UK Biobank was used for the study and included a total of 64,286 people. 55% of those studied were women who had also completed two or more 24-hour dietary recall questionnaires—information that provided valuable insights.
“Although lifestyle modification is recommended as a means of managing IBS symptoms, its potential role in preventing the onset of the condition has not been given due attention,” the researchers explained in their study.
“Our findings suggest the potential of lifestyle modifications as a primary prevention strategy for IBS,” the researchers added. Unfortunately, this was only an observational study, which means cause can’t truly be established.
