Author(s)

Kou Xinyue ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ Acupuncture and Moxibustion and Massage College, Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jinan, 250000, China

Corresponding Author

Kou Xinyue

ABSTRACT

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is one of the common functional gastrointestinal disorders, which is characterized by long-term recurrent abdominal pain, abdominal distension, and change in stool shape, which has a great impact on patients' daily life and social and medical economy, etc. Western medicine believes that its pathogenesis is mainly related to the abnormal function of the brain-intestinal axis, visceral hypersensitivity, and abnormal gastrointestinal peristalsis, etc., but the latest research suggests that its occurrence may be closely related to the imbalance of the intestinal flora. However, recent studies suggest that the mechanism of its development may be closely related to the imbalance of intestinal flora. Intestinal flora, as a large number of bacteria in the human body, plays a key role in maintaining intestinal homeostasis, in which the decrease of beneficial bacteria and the increase of harmful bacteria can induce intestinal inflammation, damage the intestinal mucosal barrier, and affect the immune response to accelerate the progress of IBS. In recent years, the number of therapeutic strategies oriented to intestinal flora has been increasing, and their efficacy is becoming significant. Western medicine often adopts conventional drug symptomatic treatment, utilizes psychotherapy and diet therapy, and fecal bacteria transplantation to treat IBS, but its adverse effects are more frequent, limiting its clinical application. Chinese medicine classifies IBS as "abdominal pain" and "diarrhea", the cause of which is internal injury of emotions and feelings, weakness of the spleen and stomach, and the mechanism of the disease is that the liver loses detachment and excretion, and the combination of deficiencies and realities often leads to lingering and unresolved disease. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is often used to regulate intestinal microbial homeostasis, which has a significant therapeutic effect. However, the treatment of TCM lacks high-quality experimental data support and has not been widely used in clinical practice, and its identification and treatment need to be rationally explained by modern science and supported by sufficient evidence from clinical trials. Therefore, this article takes the intestinal flora as an entry point, reviews its specific occurrence mechanism and targeted therapeutic measures in IBS, and summarizes the therapeutic measures of Chinese medicine and Western medicine treatment, as well as their respective advantages and disadvantages, in order to provide progress for clinical treatment.

KEYWORDS

Intestinal flora; IBS; Mechanisms; Treatments; Traditional Chinese Medicine

CITE THIS PAPER

Kou Xinyue, Exploring the pathogenesis and treatment strategies of irritable bowel syndrome based on the gut microbiota microenvironment. MEDS Basic Medicine (2024) Vol. 2: 118-125. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/medbm.2024.020217.

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