Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a common, debilitating disorder characterized by abdominal pain and disordered bowel habits. Current pharmacologic treatments often provide incomplete symptom relief and may be poorly tolerated. Furthermore, alleviation of gastrointestinal symptoms does not always translate into improved quality of life for IBS patients. Current treatment guidelines recommend brain–gut behavior therapy (BGBT) in conjunction with other IBS therapies, and, in randomized controlled trials, BGBT has been shown to improve symptoms, patient satisfaction, functioning, and quality of life.

Helicobacter pylori (HP) infection is highly prevalent worldwide, and positivity rates depend strongly on the population under study. However, there are few contemporary data describing HP epidemiology in the racially and ethnically diverse population of the United States. This retrospective study included over 900,000 individuals that had undergone HP testing between 1998 and 2018 in the Veterans Health Administration system. HP testing included serology, fecal H. pylori antigen or urea breath test, rapid urease test, CLO test, and histology evaluation, and the approach was validated against medical records.

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a positive diagnosis, made using symptom-based criteria and limited, judicious, investigation. However, this may lead to uncertainty on the part of clinicians regarding potential for a missed diagnosis of organic gastrointestinal disease. Few studies have examined durability of a diagnosis of IBS, and none have used the current gold standard to diagnose IBS, the Rome IV criteria.