WebMD Health News Feb. 26, 2007 -- People who are overly anxious
or refuse to slow down during a bout of food poisoning or other
infection-related gastrointestinal illness may be prone to
developing irritable bowel syndrome, according to a new The
findings reinforce the view that emotional factors like stress
and anxiety contribute to the chronic bowel condition. But they
also suggest that the way a person deals with acute illness
plays a role. Researchers found that people who pushed
themselves too hard when they had bacterial gastroenteritis
developed irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) more often than people
who took it easy. Gastroenteritis is inflammation of the
digestive tract that can result from a viral, bacterial, or
parasitic infection. “Instead of resting up, these driven people
kept going until they collapsed in a heap,” study co-author Rona
Moss-Morris, PhD, tells WebMD. “The gastroenteritis triggered
the symptoms, but this ‘all-or-nothing’ behavior may have helped
prolong them.” Roughly one in five A