Gas‐Related Symptoms in the General Population: Prevalence, Impact and Associated Factors in a Survey of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Mexico
Bibliographic record
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: The daily prevalence, impact, and associated personal and health factors of gas-related gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms in the general population are poorly understood and were investigated in a multi-national sample in this study. METHODS: Adults (18+ years) were surveyed nationwide via the Internet in the United States (USA), the United Kingdom (UK), and Mexico. The survey included the Intestinal Gas Questionnaire (IGQ), Rome IV diagnostic questions, anxiety, depression, somatization, and Quality of Life (QoL) questionnaires, as well as healthcare use and medical history questions. RESULTS: Five thousand nine hundred and seventy-eight respondents completed the survey: 49.1% female; mean age 44.8 years. IGQ global scores (range 0-100) were higher in Mexico (26.0) than in the United States (14.5) and the United Kingdom (13.7), higher among individuals under age 50 than older people, and only in Mexico higher in females than males. Almost all survey respondents (89%) reported one or more of the 7 IGQ gas-related symptoms in the past 24 h, with prevalence ranging from 39% for bloating to 81% for flatulence. Higher IGQ global scores correlated with lower physical (r = -0.46) and mental (r = -0.33) QoL; higher life stress (r = 0.43), anxiety (r = 0.43) and depression (r = 0.44) scores; and more non-GI physical symptoms (r = 0.50). A greater gas-related symptom burden was also related to higher prevalence of other gastroduodenal and bowel symptoms and increased doctor visits. CONCLUSIONS: Nearly all adults experience some daily gas-related symptoms. A higher burden of these symptoms is robustly associated with impairment in general QoL, increased anxiety, depression, stress, other GI symptoms, and increased healthcare needs.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".