The authority had been asked to investigate claims that prunes ensure healthy digestion and bowel function.

FORBES: Prunes Are Not Laxatives: Official European Union Ruling

The drug worked in a midstage trial of 419 IBS patients, reducing pain and improving bowel function.

FORBES: Brains Over Guts

They might cause more bowel function, this is entirely true, but more is not quite the same as normal or healthy.

FORBES: Prunes Are Not Laxatives: Official European Union Ruling

Peckham has provided patients with the ability to move a hand, cough, control bladder and bowel function, roll over and stand up.

FORBES: Technology

The clinical effects include runny nose, chest pain, shortness of breath, confusion, followed by vomiting, loss of bowel and bladder function, convulsions, loss of consciousness, and suffocation.

FORBES: Sarin Gas Is Deadly, But Fear Is More Powerful And More Deadly

The MRC scientists say in humans this would be vital for spinal injury patients who had lost sexual function and bowel and bladder control.

BBC: Nose cell transplant enables paralysed dogs to walk

These are conditions in which the bowel appears normal, but doesn't function normally.

CNN: Irritable bowel syndrome