What complimentary alternative medicines help treat IBS?

What complimentary alternative medicines help treat IBS?

There's a whole host of complimentary alternative medicines treatment interventions and sometimes patients will ask about other modalities that are under the umbrella of complimentary alternative medicine but there really isn't good data or studies to determine or provide information of whether these treatment modalities are effective. But I will say that I know there are ongoing studies and a lot of interest in conducting proper trials to assess the efficacy of these different treatment modalities, so hopefully we'll have more information in the future. The two that come to mind most commonly would be acupuncture and herbal therapy. Acupuncture has been studied only in small studies and it's hard to do a controlled trial of acupuncture - to really define or determine if it's efficacious. There have been limited studies, and in general, they haven't been positive to show an outright benefit of IBS. There have been Chinese herbal medication trials in IBS that have shown, compared to a placebo, and it's not easy to make a Chinese herbal medicine placebo, but there have been studies in controlled trials where they've shown that Chinese herbal therapy can be efficacious in treating IBS.