More Knowledge, Less Bloating<\/strong><\/p>\nThe trial enrolled 86 adults with disorders of gut-brain interaction experiencing bloating symptoms for more than 6 months and consuming more than seven high-FODMAPs items per week. Half of them had IBS.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At baseline, gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms and the ability to identify FODMAPs were assessed. All participants received a 5-minute consultation on FODMAPs avoidance from a GI fellow and were randomly allocated (stratified by IBS diagnosis and education) into two groups.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The chatbot-assisted group received real-time dietary advice via a chatbot which helped them identify high, low, and non-FODMAP foods from a list of more than 300 ingredients\/dishes of Thai and western cuisines.<\/p>\n
The control group received only brief advice on high FODMAPs restriction. Both groups used a diary app to log food intake and postprandial symptoms. Baseline bloating, abdominal pain and global symptoms severity were similar between the two groups. Data on 64 participants (32 in each group) were analyzed.<\/p>\n
After 4 weeks, significantly more people in the chatbot group than the control group responded \u2014 achieving a 30% or greater reduction in daily worst bloating, abdominal pain or global symptoms (19 [59%] vs 10 [31%], P <\/p>\n
Subgroup analysis revealed significant differences between groups only for participants with bothersome bloating, not those with mild bloating severity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In those with bothersome bloating severity, the chatbot group had a higher response rate (69.5% vs 36.3%) and fewer bloating symptoms (P P <\/p>\n
\u201cResponders in a chatbot group consistently engaged more with the app, performing significantly more weekly item searches than nonresponders (P <\/p>\n
\u201cOur next step is to develop the chatbot-assisted approach for the reintroduction and personalization phase based on messenger applications (including Facebook Messenger and other messaging platforms),\u201d Somvanapanich told Medscape Medical News.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce we\u2019ve gathered enough data to confirm these are working effectively, we definitely plan to create a one-stop service application for FODMAPs dietary advice,\u201d Somvanapanich added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lack of Robust Data on Digital GI Health Apps<\/strong><\/p>\nCommenting on this research for Medscape Medical News, Sidhartha R. Sinha, MD, Director of Digital Health and Innovation, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Stanford University in Stanford, California, noted that there is a \u201cnotable lack of robust data supporting digital health tools in gastroenterology. Despite hundreds of apps available, very few are supported by well-designed trials.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe study demonstrated that chatbot-assisted dietary advice significantly improved bloating symptoms, reduced intake of high-FODMAP foods, and enhanced patients\u2019 dietary knowledge compared to brief dietary counseling alone, especially in those with bothersome symptoms,\u201d said Sinha, who wasn\u2019t involved in the study.<\/p>\n
\u201cPatients actively used the chatbot to manage their symptoms, achieving a higher response rate than those in the control arm who received brief counseling on avoiding high-FODMAP food,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n
Sinha said in his practice at Stanford, \u201cin the heart of Silicon Valley,\u201d patients do use digital resources to manage their GI symptoms, including diseases like IBS and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) \u2014 and he believes this is \u201cincreasingly common nationally.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, the need for evidence-based tools is critical and the lack here often prevents many practitioners from regularly recommending them to patients. This study aligns well with clinical practice, and supports the use of this particular app to improve IBS symptoms, particularly when access to dietitians is limited. These results support chatbot-assisted dietary management as a feasible, effective, and scalable approach to patient care,\u201d Sinha told Medscape Medical News.<\/p>\n
The study received no commercial funding. Somvanapanich and Sinha had no relevant disclosures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN DIEGO \u2014 Low fermentable oligo-, di-, and monosaccharides and polyols (FODMAPs) dietary advice has been shown to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4318],"tags":[56839,56838,56837,5887,19636,14825,56846,372,56842,46569,46568,9811,105,14076,14075,14077,7437,56840,21373,7438,14074,14078,53275,56836,14079,56844,4434,9788,16890,56845,56843,56841,19637,46571,46570,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-128875","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-abdominal","9":"tag-abdominal-pain","10":"tag-bloating-abdominal-bloating","11":"tag-clinical-research","12":"tag-clinical-studies","13":"tag-clinical-trials","14":"tag-clinician-patient-relationship-counse","15":"tag-diet","16":"tag-doctor-patient-relationship-counseling","17":"tag-double-blind-studies","18":"tag-double-blind-study","19":"tag-gastrointestinal-disease-gi-disease","20":"tag-health","21":"tag-health-and-med-tech","22":"tag-health-and-medical-tech","23":"tag-health-and-medical-technology","24":"tag-health-care-access","25":"tag-health-care-services","26":"tag-health-services","27":"tag-health-services-accessibility","28":"tag-healthcare-and-medical-technology","29":"tag-healthcare-technology","30":"tag-inflammatory-bowel-disease-ibd-inflammatory-bowel-disease-ibd","31":"tag-irritable-bowel-syndrome-irritable-bowel-syndrome-ibs-ibs","32":"tag-medical-technology","33":"tag-nurse-patient-relationship-counseling","34":"tag-nutrition","35":"tag-pain-management","36":"tag-patient-counseling","37":"tag-pharmacist-patient-relationship-counseling","38":"tag-physician-patient-relationship","39":"tag-physician-patient-communication","40":"tag-pre-clinical-trial","41":"tag-single-blind-studies","42":"tag-single-blind-study","43":"tag-uk","44":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}