Does Exercise Help IBS?What a Walking Trial Found

IBS treatments usually mean a diet, a pill or a therapy. One of the simplest has been tested too: moving more.

The trial

Researchers in Gothenburg, Sweden, split 102 people with IBS into two groups.¹ About three-quarters were women, with a median age in the late thirties.¹

• Activity group: a physiotherapist helped each person increase their activity for 12 weeks.¹² Advice was tailored to their fitness and experience, and the activity could be anything that suited their time, opportunities and budget.²
• Comparison group: kept their usual routine.¹

What changed

	Activity group	Usual routine
Change in IBS symptom score	Fell 51 points1	Fell 5 points1
Symptoms got worse during the study	Fewer people1	More people1

Five years later

The researchers followed up 39 people, 32 of them women, a median of 5.2 years later.²

• Symptom scores were still lower than at the start: 218, down from 276.²
• Weekly activity had risen from about 3 hours to 5.²
• The most common activities were walking, aerobics and cycling.²

That follow-up had no comparison group, as the authors note, so it’s encouraging rather than proof.²

What guidance says

UK guidance for IBS includes physical activity in the self-help advice everyone should get, and says people with low activity levels should get advice and support to increase it.³

Trying it

1. Pick one activity you’d do anyway. A brisk walk after dinner counts.
2. Change one thing at a time. If you start walking and a new diet the same week, you won’t know which helped.
3. Keep a symptom log for two to four weeks next to your activity.
4. Ask about a physiotherapist. The trial’s support came from one.¹

For the other options with good evidence, see CBT for IBS by phone or online, gut-directed hypnotherapy, the low FODMAP diet and peppermint oil. If IBS hasn’t been diagnosed yet, start with what IBS is and how it’s diagnosed.

Try: “I have IBS and I’m not very active. Could a physiotherapist help me build up exercise, and how should I track whether it’s helping my gut?”

Bloated by Dinner covers this in Chapter 10, “Gut Feelings,” in a section called “Moving More.” Its Belly Clock puts movement and symptoms on the same page, so a few weeks of walks can be read against how your gut behaved. See the book.