Here are five things to know:
1. The low FODMAP diet originated in Australia, but has spread in the United States in recent years. The diet eliminates or reduces foods with certain types of sugars that have been found to trigger IBS symptoms.
2. Viberzi and Xifaxan, which were approved by the FDA in May 2015, are used for the treatment of IBS in which diarrhea is predominant.
3. Leslie W. Yang, a gastroenterologist at the University of Chicago, said the new drugs have shown some level of efficacy in clinical trials, but it will take some trial and error to figure out which will work best for an individual patient.
4. The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, the University of Chicago and Stanford (Calif.) University are among the academic medical centers implementing the low FODMAP diet as an option for patients.
5. In a study published in the journal Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics, researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston analyzed 33 U.S. children with IBS and found the low FODMAP diet reduced the frequency of abdominal pain compared with a traditional American diet.
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