For a chronic non-fatal condition like IBS, therapeutic strategies should ideally involve modification of lifestyle, achieving a degree of self-empowerment, rather than pharmacological manipulation. Dietary (e.g., the FODMAP diet) and psychotherapeutic strategies (e.g., gut-directed hypnotherapy) have an extensive evidence-base for efficacy in the majority of patients with IBS. 

About the Presenter

Peter Gibson is Professor and Director of Gastroenterology at The Alfred Hospital and Monash University. He is directs a program of translational research in irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease with major attention to the use of diet to improve patient outcomes and in the optimisation of anti-inflammatory therapies. His group’s work on the FODMAP diet has changed the paradigms of management in functional gastrointestinal disorders across the world. He has published more than 400 peer-reviewed papers and was awarded the Distinguished Research Prize by the Gastroenterological Society of Australia in 2010.