Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | Re: Biofeedback...an accurate understanding?

Regarding probiotics and bad bacteria. I don't know of any probiotics that kills bad bacteria. They might compete with gut bacteria for food and other resources thereby reducing the population of some bacteria in the gut flora. However, this won't likely be effective for controlling bad bacteria.

Generally speaking probiotics exert a local control perhaps on something like a local inflammation. For example, there is evidence that some IBSers have a dysregulation of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines involved in the immune system. The probiotic in Align is thought to modulate the balance between these cytokines reducing local inflammation.

Biofeedback and hypnosis are quite interesting. In some ways they are related. I have built and used biofeedback devices. Also, I have had some training in the practice and art of hypnosis and self-hypnosis. They both involve feedback of some sort.

The feedback in biofeedback usually comes in the form of an audio, visual or tactical stimulus. For example, an audio tone may increase or decrease in frequency as your heart rate increases and decreases. In order to decrease the tone you have to relax and an increase in anxiety will increase the frequency of the tone.

Hypnosis on the other hand directs your attention through suggestion to sensations, feelings, etc that you use as feedback to focus your state of mind and being. Gut directed hypnosis aims to control and normalize gut function.

From a personal perspective I think a complicated biofeedback system with inputs from a variety of body sources might be needed for this approach to be effective for IBS. The research suggests current biofeedback systems are not particularly effective. Gut-directed hypnosis has a considerable amount of research supporting its effectiveness. To me this makes sense because you are using your mind to gather a variety of the sensory information that you would need to externalize to a biofeedback machine which would be nearly impossible.

My apologies for the long winded responses. I find these techniques for managing IBS symptoms fascinating. In particular, I have been following the case of researchers who claimed at a conference that hypnosis was a cure for IBS. They defined cure in a peculiar way for which he criticized by his colleagues. When their results were finally published in a peer reviewed journal the reports of a cure had been eliminated from the text.

Anyway - I hope this makes sense to you.

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