Childhood abdominal pain is a common complaint, and it may progress to adult irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) in some cases, according to a study in the American Journal of Gastroenterology.

IBS is marked by bloating, pain, constipation and diarrhea, and often doesn’t seem to have a direct physical cause - although the symptoms are certainly real.

“The natural history of childhood abdominal pain and its association with adult IBS remain poorly described,” Dr. Nicholas J. Talley, of the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, Minnesota, and colleagues note in their report.

To investigate, they assessed the characteristics of childhood abdominal pain over the first 11 years of life in some 1,000 children born in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1972, and examined the association of childhood abdominal pain with IBS at when the participants reached 26 years of age.

A history of abdominal pain was documented in 18 percent of the children.

Childhood abdominal pain was more common in females than in males. The prevalence of abdominal pain peaked at age 7 to 9 years among boys, but it remained stable across assessments for females.

IBS at age 26 years was about 2 or 3 times more common among subjects with a history of childhood abdominal pain between the ages of 7 and 9 years compared to those with no history.

Factoring in gender, socioeconomic status, psychiatric disorder at age 26, childhood emotional distress, or maternal malaise did not alter this association.

“The emergence of multiple stressors in the home and school environment may present a plausible mechanism to account for these findings,” Talley’s team suggests.

As they point out, “The 7 to 9 year age-period follows closely from the school starting age in many cultures, and children who are predisposed to stress-related disorders may be at particular risk of developing symptomatic complaints at this point.”

SOURCE: American Journal of Gastroenterology, September 2005.