Dr. Yoram Shir and his team at the @mcgill University Health Center have discovered a gastrointestinal bacterial signature associated with the disease, which would now allow for its direct diagnosis and the hope of a treatment.
Dr. Yoram Shir, a QPRN member, physician and researcher at the Alan Edwards Pain Management Unit of the McGiil University Health Centre (MUHC) has been interested for several years in the link between microbiota, gastrointestinal microbes and fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia is characterized by muscle or joint pain that cannot be explained by other diseases such as arthritis. The prevalence of this difficult-to-diagnose disease is not well known, ranging from 1% to 6% of the population, mainly women. In an article published in La Presse, Dr. Shir explains the reasons that led him to explore the link between microbiota and pain. If this link is confirmed, it could pave the way for new direct diagnostic tools for fibromyalgia that are sorely lacking in the medical community. Even if these are only preliminary results, Dr. Shir intends to continue his research by studying the effect of diet on microbiota and pain.
