extra research is needed it might be necessary to do a serum screening for tissue transglutaminase in ibs d patients the randomisation method used in this study should have effectively reduced or even neutralised the cases of celiac diseases that might have been missed by the study other studies an abnormal fbc might also been effective in excluding celiac disease cases the potentiated clinoptilolite u201c c35 u201d group were characterised by an older population than the placebo group however the duration of symptoms the severity frequency and impact of symptoms were similar between the two treatment groups therefore all patients had similar disease characteristics before treatment it could therefore be safely assumed that a difference in treatment can be ascribed to a true actual difference and not due to dissimilarities in the degree of symptoms before treatment both treatment groups were classified as having u201c moderate u201d degree of symptoms table 6 3 according to the ibs sss the global assessment question u201c in the last 7 days have you had overall adequate relief of your ibs symptoms u201d was used to classify participants as responders or non responders in the present study participants reporting u2018 yes u201d in 50 of treatment weeks i e any two weeks of the 4 week treatment period.