OBJECTIVES Functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGIDs) are common. The diagnosis of FGIDs is based on the Rome criteria, a symptom-based diagnostic classification established by expert consensus. There is little evidence of validity for the pediatric Rome III criteria. The construct validity of the criteria, an overarching term that incorporates other forms of validity, has never been assesse...

Damage resulting from alcohol to the fetus has been observed since biblical times, yet not until 1973 was it formally recognized as Fetal Alcohol S y n d rome (FA S ) .4 Diagnosis of FAS re q u i res a positive history of maternal alcohol consumption during pre g n a n c y, as well as three criteria including p renatal and/or postnatal growth delay, characteristic cranio-facial anomalies, and c...

OBJECTIVE To determine rates of faecal biomarker results capable of suggesting potentially treatable causes of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) symptomatology in a population of patients with symptoms of IBS who meet Rome III criteria for that condition. DESIGN Descriptive, retrospective study in which faecal biomarker results (dichotomised into 'normal' and 'abnormal' values) were related to d...

BACKGROUND Epidemiological studies suggest considerable overlap between functional dyspepsia (FD) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). To date, no surveys have been performed to investigate the clinical overlap between these two disorders using Rome III criteria. Our aim was to investigate the prevalence and risk factors for the overlap of FD and IBS based on Rome III criteria in a large clinica...

AIM To investigate how individuals fulfilling the Rome II criteria for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) spontaneously described their symptoms. METHOD From a general population, 1,244 randomly sampled adults were asked to describe their gastrointestinal symptoms (if any) verbally, in their own words, at a semi-structured interview. Their own descriptions were sorted into five symptom clusters. ...

Functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGIDs), the most common diagnoses in gastroenterology are recognized by morphological and physiological abnormalities that often occur in combination including motility disturbance, visceral hypersensitivity, altered mucosal and immune function, altered gut microbiota and altered central nervous system processing. Research on these gut-brain interaction di...