Hot Topics in Primary Care: Role of the Microbiome in Disease: Implications for Treatment of Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

Dietary and some other treatments for IBS are supported by a growing body of evidence, much of which comes from programs such as the Human Microbiome Project and Human Gut Microbiome Initiative, which were intended to identify and characterize microorganisms found in association with both healthy and diseased humans. These programs used state-of-the-art technology to characterize the human microbiome from multiple body sites. This evidence indicates that the gut microbiome plays an important role in IBS and some other gastrointestinal (GI) disorders.