About the Center for Women's Digestive Health

The Women's Digestive Health Center -- the clinical component of the newly established CNS -- will focus on the diagnosis and management of chronic digestive disorders characterized by pain and discomfort such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), that primarily affect women. The center's features include patient care, medical education programs, and for patients who qualify, access to appropriate clinical trials investigating functional bowel disorders. These services will be offered to all patients with functional bowel disorders as well as other medical conditions which commonly co-exist with IBS and/or occur commonly in women, including interstitial cystitis (IC), migraine headaches, depression/anxiety, and certain hepatological conditions such as fatty liver.

Viewing the patient and their symptoms as a whole, with good health as an indicator of homeostasis and disease as a breakdown of that physiological balance, the center is based upon a holistic vision of health and disease. "In many ways, the center will herald a unique approach to treatment," says Lin Chang, MD, Director of the Women's Digestive Health Center, and UCLA Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Digestive Diseases. "A team of physicians, nurses, and other healthcare specialists will apply novel treatments integrating the best and most advanced in Western biomedical techniques with the best in complementary medicine," elaborates Dr. Chang.