The irritable bowel.

The irritable bowel There is no subject other than the weather so prone to uninformed comment as bowel function. Ignorance notwithstanding, gut disorder is a significant health problem. There are more physician visits in the United States for the irritable bowel syndrome than for inflammatory bowel disease and the days in hospital are similar in the two conditions.1 The irritable bowel syndrome is the most common disease category seen by gastroenterologists.2 This review will discuss the irritable bowel stressing developments which have occurred since 1978.3