Dr. Schechter's Blog Stress, IBS, and Unclean Water

Originally posted: July 15, 2015

David Schechter, MD





Researchers in Belgium found that that certain psychological factors were associated with infections in the gut after inadvertent exposure to contaminated water. Specifically, anxiety and somatization were associated, but not depression.

This same group of individuals was also at higher risk to develop irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) after this infection. Researchers looked at levels of immune cells and found correlations here that seemed to connect the psychological factors and physical conditions. They called those who developed the IBS symptoms after the gastroenteritis, "post infectious" IBS.

I found the study interesting. It was an unfortunate (contaminated water) natural experiment where those who ended up with both an infectious and later a functional bowel condition had clearly defined psychological factors that increased their risk of these conditions.

The authors concluded that IBS is poorly understood and psychosocial factors are clearly important in its development.



Personality factors have been crucial to understanding chronic pain, TMS, and treatment. Somatization, or tending to express one's emotions physically, or with physical symptoms, seems to be a commonality here.

 

This is interesting. It further shows that it’s the emotional factors, fear/anger that cause the symptoms to take off.

I remember reading about gout while researching and there was a piece by Paracelsus that warned, “Don’t stub your toe under stress!” Stress exacerbates it. Then I ran across the work of Robert Sapolsky on stress and ulcers, (National Geographic: Stress). Scientists discovered that most people in the world have the ulcer bacteria in their stomachs. But only those under stress have it run rampant and ignite the actual ulcers.

Then you have the Castro neck study that showed only the people under psychosocial stress in the virtual collisions had lingering neck problems. The same can be seen in food and pollen allergies and chemical sensitivities. The systems over-react to the outer “dangers” as the body sees it, such as contaminated water. The body tries to survive when under outside threat, but in doing so it seems to over-react. The brain does them a favor and forces their mind’s eye to their body, if it needs a diversion.

The thing that most interested me here is that they discounted depression for some reason, but it didn’t say why?

Steve