COMT Val158Met Polymorphism and Symptom Improvement Following a Cognitively Focused Intervention for Irritable Bowel Syndrome.
Claire J Han, Ruth Kohen, Sangeun Jun and 4 others
PMID 28252569WHAT IT FOUND
At three months, Val allele carriers with IBS had greater reductions in anxiety and feeling stressed after the cognitively focused intervention than Met/Met patients.
The effect was weaker at six months and absent for combined primary outcomes.
Key findings
01At three months, Val allele carriers had greater reductions in anxiety and feeling stressed after CSM than Met/Met homozygotes, and Val/Val participants showed the greatest reductions.
02The genotype-by-CSM interaction was much weaker at six months and not statistically significant for primary outcomes at combined time points.
03CSM also interacted with COMT genotype for abdominal distension, constipation, and retrospective psychological distress at three months.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The parent trials were powered to test CSM treatment effects, not genotype-by-intervention interactions. The sample was small and limited to self-reported European Americans, so results cannot be generalized to other racial or ethnic groups. The sample was predominantly female, so results may not apply equally to men. The effect was strongest at three months and weaker or not significant at six months and combined time points. CSM was delivered as a package, so the contribution of any single component cannot be separated. No gene expression studies were done, so the biological mechanism is not clarified.
Declared interests
The authors report no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read COMT genotype as ready for clinical decision-making. The authors state the results should be interpreted with caution, need confirmation in larger and more diverse samples, and did not perform gene expression studies.