The recent study by Wouters et al 1 reported that psychological status inversely correlates with immune profile in the development of postinfectious IBS. While there is increasing evidence of chronic low-grade immune activation in IBS, this field is mired in controversy.2 In our opinion, this contention is related to two major methodological issues: the tendency to group all patients with IBS together rather than stratifying according to bowel habit,3 and the overwhelming predominance of cross-sectional studies. We addressed these issues by performing a longitudinal study of patients with IBS comparing immune function within patients when symptom free and when they experience symptom flare. Eleven subjects with long-standing IBS (initially characterised by ROME II criteria: 5 IBS-D, 4 IBS-A, 2 IBS-C; 10 female; 59±3 years (mean±SEM)) were enrolled sequentially from tertiary centres in Adelaide, Australia. Subjects completed a valid self-report Bowel Disease Questionnaire3 and …

中文翻译：

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纵向分析表明症状严重程度影响肠易激综合征的免疫特征

Wouters 等人最近的研究 1 报告说，心理状态与感染后 IBS 的发展中的免疫特征呈负相关。虽然越来越多的证据表明 IBS 中存在慢性低级别免疫激活，但该领域仍深陷争议。2 在我们看来，这种争论与两个主要的方法论问题有关：倾向于将所有 IBS 患者归为一组，而不是根据排便习惯，3 以及横断面研究的压倒性优势。我们通过对 IBS 患者进行纵向研究，比较无症状和出现症状发作时患者的免疫功能，从而解决了这些问题。11 名患有长期 IBS 的受试者（最初以 ROME II 标准为特征：5 名 IBS-D、4 名 IBS-A、2 名 IBS-C；10 名女性；59±3 岁（平均值±SEM））从澳大利亚阿德莱德的三级中心依次入组。受试者完成了有效的自我报告肠病问卷 3 并且……