This is particularly relevant now as newer and more expensive drugs have either failed to work or been withdrawn from the market owing to concerns about serious adverse events. We doctors need effective treatments that are cheap, safe, and available. You can grow mint right on your window sill. What about peppermint tea? It’s never been tested, but one might assume it wouldn’t be concentrated enough, but a quarter cup of fresh peppermint leaves has as much peppermint oil as some of the capsule doses used in the studies, which one could easily blend into a smoothie, or with frozen berries to make something like my pink juice recipe. The studies used peppermint oil capsules, so they could match them with placebo pills.
Peppermint oil benefits ibs trial#
The longest trial lasted only 12 weeks, so we don’t know about long-term efficacy, though the benefits may last at least a month after stopping, thought perhaps to be due to lasting changes in our gut flora. This suggests that it might be a reasonable approach for clinicians to treat IBS patients with peppermint oil as a first-line therapy, before trying anything else. A few adverse events were reported, but were mild and transient in nature, such as a peppermint taste, peppermint smell, and a cooling sensation around one’s bottom whereas in some of the head-to-head peppermint versus drug studies, some of the drug side effects were so unbearable they had to drop out of the study. Nine randomized placebo-controlled studies have found peppermint oil to be a safe and effective treatment for irritable bowel syndrome. Indeed, sugar pills probably won’t cost $3,000 a year, but is there a safe alternative that actually works? They conclude that for some disorders, it may be appropriate for clinicians to recommend that patients try an inexpensive and safe placebo. That’s how powerful the placebo effect can be for irritable bowel. Patients with irritable bowel syndrome were randomized to either get nothing-or a prescription medicine bottle of placebo pills with a label clearly marked “Placebo pills,” “Take 2 pills twice daily.” I kid you not.Īnd lo and behold, it worked. There’s actually a way to harness the placebo effect without lying to patients, though. I’ve talked about the ethics of so many doctors effectively passing off sugar pills as effective drugs, who argue the ends justify the means. What’s placebo acupuncture? It’s where you poke people with a fake needle away from any known acupuncture points, yet, that worked just as well as real acupuncture, showing the power of the placebo effect. There’s got to be a better way.Īcupuncture works, but no better than placebo. Linaclotide is one of the newest, $3,000 a year, and again can cause the very problems it’s designed to help.Īntidepressants are commonly given, but may take four to six weeks to help for Prozac or Celexa up to 12 weeks for Paxil, and have their own array of side effects–including sexual dysfunction caused by these three drugs in over 70% of the people who take them. The typical antispasmodic drugs can cause side effects, such as dry mouth, dizziness, blurred vision, confusion, and fall risk, but there are new drugs on the market now, like Lubiprostone, which can cost $2,000 a year, and cause-as side effects-many of the symptoms you’re trying to treat. Since there is no cure for IBS, treatment is targeted to alleviate the symptoms. So, the first step toward successful treatment is for doctors to acknowledge the condition, and not dismiss the patient as just hysterical or something.Īnother reason sufferers often don’t seek medical care may be the lack of effectiveness of the available treatments. Using some measures, the health-related quality of life of irritable bowel sufferers can rival that of sufferers of much more serious disorders, such as diabetes, kidney failure, and inflammatory bowel disease.
Doctors underestimate the impact the disease can have, particularly the pain and discomfort. It can have a substantial impact on well-being and health. Irritable bowel syndrome is a chronic, episodic intestinal disorder characterized by abdominal pain and altered bowel habits affecting 1 in 7 Americans, though most go undiagnosed.
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