New PLOS ONE study shows significance of BHI’s approach in patients with IBD/IBS

A pilot study by BHI researchers and colleagues at Mass General and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center shows that patients with irritable bowel syndrome or inflammatory bowel disease experience symptom improvement and changes in inflammation-related gene expression after participating in BHI’s Stress Management and Resiliency Training (SMART) program.

This pilot study was just published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, and is the first to examine the use of the relaxation response in these disorders; it is also the first to investigate the genomic effects of the relaxation response in individuals with any disorder.

Co-lead author of the study, Braden Kuo, MD, of the Gastrointestinal Unit in the MGH Department of Medicine said about the study, “Our results suggest exciting possibilities for further developing and implementing this treatment in a wider group of patients with gastrointestinal illness. What is novel about this study is demonstration of the impact of a mind/body intervention on the genes controlling inflammatory factors that are known to play a major role in IBD and possibly IBS.”

Both IBS and IBD are chronic conditions that produce abdominal pain and changes in bowel function, such as diarrhea. Stress seems to make both conditions worse, and symptoms themselves can increase stress in patients, so finding ways to break that cycle can have significant clinical benefits.

Both patients with IBS and IBD experienced significant improvement in symptoms, anxiety and overall quality of life, not only by the end of the program, but after just 3 weeks in the program. Changes in gene expression related to inflammation were changed as well, most significantly in patients with IBD.

In both IBS and IBD, the pathway controlled by a protein called NF-kB emerged as one of those most significantly affected by the relaxation response, which confirms the findings of previous genomic studies.

Co-senior author Johnn Denninger, MD, PhD, of BHI notes, “One interesting clinical impact was a decrease among patients in what is called pain catastophizing- a negative cognitive and emotional response to pain or the anticipation of pain. In other words, participants became more resilient in the face of the pain they were experiencing.”

According to Denninger, the next step will be to conduct a longer, randomized trial with a control group and enough patients to identify statistically significant results.

This study enrolled 48 patients who were diagnosed with either IBS or IBD. After 9 weeks of participation in the SMART program