Thiol-disulfide homeostasis in irritable bowel syndrome

Abstract

Objective: The etiopathogenesis and pathophysiological mechanism of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is not fully known. In this study, evaluating dynamic thiol-disulfide homeostasis (TDH) in patients with IBS was aimed.

Subjects and methods: A total of 92 people, 46 IBS patients and 46 healthy sex and aged-matched volunteers, were included in the study. Thiol/disulfide parameters in serum were measured in all cases, and the two groups were compared.

Results: Disulfide levels (21.9 ± 5.0 µmol/L vs. 19.4 ± 4.2 µmol/L, respectively; p < 0.001), disulfide/native thiol (5.7% ± 1.2% vs. 4.9% ± 0.8%, p < 0.001, respectively) and disulfide/total thiol ratio (5.1% ± 0.9% vs. 4.5% ± 0.7%, respectively, p < 0.001) were found to be higher in IBS patients, and native thiol/total thiol ratio (89.8% ± 1.9%, 90.6% ± 1.9%, p < 0.001, respectively) was found to be lower in IBS patients.

Conclusions: In our study, it was shown that TDH is impaired in IBS, which is an important result supporting studies showing that oxidative stress plays a role in IBS. On the other hand, it is thought that this study will contribute to the literature in terms of being the first study evaluating TDH in adult IBS.