Researchers who examined the gut microbiome of patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) symptoms found they displayed no altered or distinct gut microbiome.

IBS is not associated with an altered microbiome, either in stool samples or in the mucosa-associated microbiome observed from colonoscopies, the Swedish study shows.

As such, although commercial testing of stool microbiomes is available, it’s “unlikely to help guide current therapeutic interventions as IBS did not have a clear microbial signature”, they write. 

There is emerging evidence that the microbiome may play a role in IBS, but the data is conflicting in terms of specific bacterial taxa, the researchers write in Gut .