Kiwifruit for Irritable Bowel Syndrome

An estimated 10-20% of the general population suffers from irritable bowel syndrome, accounting for about four million doctor visits a year. What can we do for people?

Well, how about a kiwifruit intervention? Kiwifruit improves bowel function in patients with irritable bowel syndrome with constipation. Thankfully, in English too: “the impact of a four week kiwifruit intervention on bowel function in patients diagnosed with [irritable bowel with constipation].” Two kiwis a day for a month in this study funded by, of course, the world’s largest marketer of kiwis—I’m surprised they didn’t have them eating five a day.

But they did find such a kiwi intervention “shortens colon transit time, increases defecation frequency, and improves bowel function.” Furthermore: “No deleterious effects of kiwifruit consumption on psychological functioning or adverse events were found in these studies.”

Uh, I would hope not. But what they’re hinting at, though, is tegaserod—the most frequently prescribed drug for irritable bowel, until it was pulled from the market out of concern it was killing people, increasing risk of heart attack and stroke.

So, I’d stick with the kiwis.

To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by Serena

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Images thanks to Karpour via Wikimedia Commons; and justusbluemer, and Liz West via flickr.