A few years ago, I finally went to a gastroenterologist. I had done an allergy exclusion process before: a scratch test followed by an exclusion diet. Neither was conclusive: I still regularly had unreliable intestines. The gastroenterologist ran a few tests, but nothing was conclusive there either: just a bit of inflammation that didn’t worry him. So he landed on a diagnosis of Irretable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), which is basically a catch-all of a bunch of symptoms that are highly different for each individual. He indicated that there were more venues to explore, but that if my condition was manageable (it was), I should just learn to live with it. In my case, it was indeed a nuisance, but not something that was more concerning than that.
Fast-forward to a few months ago. My IBS was a still an inconvenience. The biggest challenge was its unpredictability. Even with the above-mentioned exclusion diet where I cut out pretty much any known allergen and gradually reintroduced those, my urgency (as in: I urgently needed to find a toilet) stayed seemingly random. Neither Kim nor I found any patterns.
Setting up the research
Inspired by the advances in AI in the medical field, I decided to make the urgency at least somewhat more predictable. I asked ChatGPT for a list of questions I would answer daily that would be enough for the AI tool to analyse what my triggers were. Here’s the questionnaire that ChatGPT gave me and that I tweaked lightly:
Urgency
Describe the frequency and severity of urgency episodes today:
Stress
Are you stressed? (not really/somewhat/a lot)
Diet
This is what I ate today:
- Breakfast:
- Lunch:
- Snack:
- Dinner:
- Number of coffees:
- Drinks other than water:
- Were you hydrated enough?
Physical activity
- What physical activity did you do?
- How many hours did you sit at a desk?
- And on the couch?
Sleep
How well did you sleep? (great/okay/bad)
Daily logging
I set this up as a template on the Day One journaling app. Every evening at 7.30pm, I was prompted to fill in the template, and I did this for 46 days.
I chose that time as that is one where I’m mostly sitting next to my daughter as she falls asleep. I’m awake enough to answer it correctly, and normally not do anything but scroll on my phone a bit.
Day One allows for exporting to different files. I used the desktop app to export to a simple .txt file (Plain text / Markdown).
Analysing with ChatGPT and Claude.ai
After the export, I pasted the text into ChatGPT 4 (paid) and uploaded the file to Claude 3 Sonnet (free). I saw this as a combination of independent reviewers, with a way to test which of the two had the better reply.
I prompted the tools by asking them to analyse the data I shared and indicate what my most likely triggers are.
In both cases, ChatGPT and Claude gave more generic lists: they defaulted towards including all options. So, I asked both to limit the answer to the triggers that show a clear correlation. The results were similar, but ChatGPT seems to focus only on my diet, while Claude had a more holistic approach. This is their reply after asking to narrow down to only clear correlations:
ChatGPT
Focusing more narrowly on the items from your diet that showed a more evident link to IBS symptom flare-ups, here are the high-FODMAP foods that seemed to correlate more directly with your urgency episodes:
- Wheat-Based Products:
- Bagels (regularly mentioned on days with reported urgency)
- Pasta (associated with symptoms on several occasions)
- Wraps (noted on days with discomfort)
- Dairy Products:
- Cream Cheese (frequently consumed on days with symptoms)
- Yoghurt (common on days preceding urgency episodes)
- Other Foods:
- Avocado (included in meals on days with reported symptoms, and while nutritious, can be high in FODMAPs in larger quantities)
Reducing intake of these specific foods might help in managing your symptoms more effectively. As always, any dietary adjustments should ideally be undertaken with guidance from a healthcare professional familiar with IBS.
Claude.ai
Based on the diary entries, the triggers that show a clearer correlation with your IBS symptoms are:
- Diet:
- High consumption of dairy products like cream cheese, yoghurt, and cheese.
- Alcohol consumption, especially beer and wine.
- Hydration: On days when you mentioned not being hydrated enough, urgency episodes were more common.
- Stress: There seems to be a strong correlation between increased stress levels (noted as “somewhat” or “a lot”) and IBS symptoms like urgency and stomach upset.
The triggers that appear to have a less clear or consistent correlation based on the provided data are:
- Processed meats
- High fiber foods
- Intense physical activity
- Inconsistent sleep
- Potential food intolerances (chocolate, spicy foods, certain fruits)
The triggers that stand out as having the most evident connection to your IBS symptoms are dairy products, alcohol, dehydration, and increased stress levels. Focusing on managing these potential triggers may be the most effective approach to reducing your IBS flare-ups.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
What’s next?
None of the results are extremely surprising; but especially the more detailed results from Claude.ai are helpful for a next step. I’ll likely try another few weeks of confirming the results, and make sure that I stay clear of those triggers.
The results of Claude.ai also explain why I’ve never had an issue in the few times we’ve travelled to South East Asia: we don’t consume much dairy, nor do we drink that much, on holiday my stress levels are low, and I drink a lot of water to combat the humidity.
I doubt that I will necessarily clear the triggers off my daily routine entirely, but knowing my triggers allows me to be more conscious of my habits. When I was single, the only person who was negatively affected by the IBS was me, but now it impacts our whole family, and it’s nice to know what I can avoid.
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