Introduction: Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) and Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) are two gastrointestinal disorders with often overlapping gastrointestinal symptomatology consisting mainly of abdominal pain and altered bowel function. However, in early IBD the initial period consists of clinical manifestation of abdominal distress and of extra-digestive symptoms. Methods: We performed a clinical characterization of 55 outpatients that suffered these symptoms. Results: The previous diagnosis of these patients was IBS in 69.1% of the cases while 30.9% had no previous explicit diagnosis. No morphological changes were observed in upper or lower intestinal endoscopic and histopathological studies. Of these patients, 70.9% reported stressful life events in the past while the calprotectin fecal test exceeded 100µg/g in all the tested patients, indicating low grade intestinal inflammation. This “transitional disease” condition improved with anti-inflammatory treatment (i.e. oral mesalazine) leading to an inactivation of the symptomatology in 89% of the patients. Conclusion: The data supports the notion that psychological distress favors a transitional or early IBD characterized by low grade inflammation. This early disease state improves with anti-inflammatory treatment.