Media Article: "Antibiotic may treat irritable bowel syndrome"

Sufferers of ME/CFS often have to deal with the added complication of IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). Researchers in America have been looking into the use of a traveller's antibiotic which has eliminated symptoms of IBS for up to 10 weeks after the drug was first prescribed.

(…) "Dr. Mark Pimentel and colleagues at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles gave 87 sufferers either 400 mg of rifaximin three times a day for 10 days or a placebo. (…) "Use of rifaximin helped overall symptoms and the benefits lasted for the full 10 weeks of follow-up, Pimental's team reported. (…) "The fact that the benefit of the targeted antibiotic continued even after it was stopped provides evidence that the antibiotic was acting on a source of the problem: excess bacteria in the gut," he said in a statement." Reuters, Monday 16 October 2006

To read the full article, click here.

Meg Sleepydust Newspaper Coordinator