Excerpt from the Daily Mail:

Hypnotherapy could be the latest weapon in the fight against irritable bowel syndrome, providing benefits that last up to five years.
Conventional treatment – including antidepressant and painkilling drugs – is ineffective, according to a report which says doctors should consider offering psychological therapies.
The report says the condition may have a partial “psychological basis”.
…
Small trials have found hypnotherapy was successful as a means of managing symptoms, says a report published today in the British Medical Journal.
It found patients with IBS are more likely to suffer from depression and “abnormal” behaviour patterns including anxiety.
They also display somatisation – the conversion of emotional, mental, or psychosocial problems into physical complaints.

Excerpt from BBC News:

Hypnotherapy could help people with severe irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), researchers say.
Doctors should consider using this and other “psychological” treatments such as antidepressants to help sufferers, King’s College London experts say in the British Medical Journal.
However, a shortage of therapists could hinder this, they add.
Experts said there was growing evidence that IBS cases have psychological as well as biological elements.
…
Dr Nick Read, a psychologist and adviser to the IBS Network, said he felt that the majority of IBS patients had a psychologists element to their condition.
He said: “There’s now a lot of evidence that psychological therapies can be effective, but a lot of doctors remain sceptical, and carry on treating with drugs which have side-effects, and which basically don’t work.
“I work with patients with IBS trying to understand what, for each patient, lies behind the illness.”

At North Kent Hypnotherapy we specialise in helping people with IBS by treating the mental aspects contributing to their condition, and it is great for us to see the results we see every day being officially validated by scientists.

Read more about our approach to IBS here.

The hypnosis researchers included Magnus Simren, MD, of Sahlgrenska University Hospital’s internal medicine department in Gothenburg, Sweden. Simren’s hypnosis studies had a combined total of 135 IBS patients. The patients’ average age was 41; most were women.

In both studies, participants were split into two groups. One group got 12 weekly one-hour hypnotherapy sessions focused on gut-related problems. For comparison, the second group didn’t get hypnosis. In one study, the comparison group got 12 weeks of attention from doctors and nutritionists. In the other study, the comparison group got no special care.

The patients rated their gastrointestinal symptoms, quality of life, and depression at the study’s start, immediately after 12 weeks of treatment, and again six and 12 months later.

“The hypnotherapy groups improved significantly in both studies regarding gastrointestinal symptoms and the control groups did not,” Simren says.

Significant improvement (meaning improvement not likely due to chance) in gastrointestinal symptoms was seen in 52% of the hypnotherapy groups, compared with 32% of the comparison groups.

The improvements were mainly seen with symptoms of abdominal pain, distension, and bloating, rather than for bowel habits, the study shows.

(Web MD – 24th May 2006)

Medics at The University of Manchester have discovered a way to treat Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) using hypnotherapy…. With a success-rate of about 70% Professor Whorwell believes that, although labour-intensive, hypnotherapy could be an extremely effective treatment for the condition; and a less expensive alternative to new, costly drugs coming onto the market.
The University of Manchester (27th September 2005)

(BBC News – 4th January 2004)