Essential reading from the editor’s desk

Functional gastrointestinal disorders like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and functional dyspepsia (FD) are highly prevalent with a significant impact on the quality of life (1). Unfortunately, the pathophysiology remains poorly understood even if it is clear that a disturbed bidirectional communication between the brain and the gut, i.e. the brain-gut axis, is involved (2). These insights led to the renaming from functional gastrointestinal disorders to ‘disorders of gut-brain interaction’ (DGBI) since the last iteration of the Rome criteria (3). In the current issue of the Acta Gastro-enterologica Belgica, Van Nieuwenhove and colleagues report an increased prevalence of IBS and a similar tendency for FD in 44 patients with liver steatosis vs. a control group of 33 patients with a normal liver on ultrasound (4).