SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Med.
Sec. Gastroenterology
Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Exercise Therapy for Irritable Bowel Syndrome: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Provisionally accepted
- Longhua Hospital, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
ABSTRACT Objective: Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a functional gastrointestinal disorder characterized by abdominal pain, distension, and altered bowel habits that significantly impacts patients' quality of life and imposes a substantial socioeconomic burden. Traditional treatment options, including antispasmodics and probiotics, are often limited by modest efficacy, variable evidence quality, and challenges with long-term adherence, highlighting the need for alternative non-pharmacological strategies. Exercise has gained attention as a non-pharmacological intervention because of its ability to regulate autonomic function and modulate inflammatory pathways. In this review, we define exercise therapy as a planned, structured, and repetitive physical activity program with specified type, frequency, intensity, and duration. Methods: The PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Ovid databases were searched up to February 17, 2025 for studies that compared exercise therapy with no exercise therapy in IBS. A meta-analysis was conducted, and when heterogeneity was excessive, a sensitivity analysis was performed. Results: Of 2,142 citations screened, 10 studies that included 437 patients with IBS were selected. The meta-analysis indicated that improvement in the IBS-SSS score was greater in the exercise grouIBSp than in the control group. However, the effects of exercise intervention on the IBS-QOL measure and anxiety were not statistically significant. Conclusion: Exercise interventions could alleviate symptoms in patients with IBS, although their impact on quality of life scores and remission of anxiety is unclear. There is no evidence-based consensus on a standardized exercise prescription for IBS. The absence of such a framework may introduce potential confounders, affecting the accuracy of efficacy assessments of quality of life and psychological outcomes. Multicenter randomized controlled trials with a standardized exercise framework are needed to explore the role and mechanisms of exercise therapy in management of IBS.
Keywords: Clinical Trial, Exercise Therapy, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Meta-analysis, Systematic review
Received: 19 Dec 2025; Accepted: 03 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Wu, Du, Sun, Ye and Xu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Yanting Sun
Jie Ye
Yangxian Xu
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.