Approved Research

Functional Bowel Disorders are a Spectrum of Food Intolerance - Towards A Food Intolerance Index (FII).

Lay summary

During our research so far, we have recognised that even the most recent Rome Criteria (Rome IV) could exclude a significant number of sufferers if they do not meet the conditions specified. An example is that the current diagnosis criteria can leave some people out of the diagnosis if they simply lack abdominal pain while they still suffer from strain of constipation and its severe impact. Therefore, we proposed a food intolerance index (FII) which aims to overcome these issues among others to give an equal opportunity for therapies available through the national health systems and be fairer to the sufferer. We hypothesise that the UK Biobank data will give us insight into the best form the FII should take (i.e. what symptom to include for optimum identification of the FBD suffers) and the degree of severity.

In combination with dietary analysis available in the UK Biobank data, we hope to validate the FII and test its biological plausibility of identify the food ingredient implicated on symptom generation (i.e. FODMAPs, gluten, etc).