Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards

I was involved in a support group where one member was actually there gathering data on the others. I ended up in an article, thinly disguised. No, the article did not appear in a scientific journal, but it did appear in a local newspaper read by people who knew me. I learned that I was not crazy about being an uninformed lab rat.

It is quite true that data derived from a public message board would not qualify as statistically valid, but there are a lot of articles out there about IBS that rely heavily on studies that are not double-blind, not placebo-controlled, and not random. Unless I've missed a recent article, all of the hot SIBO stuff, for example, is about as statistically messy as it's possible to get.

Even apart from issues of testable solutions to IBS, an article derived from information on this Board would be quite interesting from a psychological standpoint (either blind following of a flawed plan or providing hope to the hopeless); an alternative medicine standpoint (a solution for IBS outside the normal bounds of Western medicine); and a systems standpoint (apart from the specific information being discussed, what are the dynamics of the group).

Knowledge is generally an excellent thing. I had simply hoped you would explicitly reassure me about how you plan to use it.

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[Research tells us fourteen out of any ten individuals likes chocolate. - Sandra Boynton]

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