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See the original image at reuters.com —

Big haul of Crohn's genes shows disease complexity

reuters.com — Scientists have linked 32 genetic variations to Crohn's disease, a bowel disorder, highlighting the complexity of many common diseases and the difficulties facing researchers seeking treatments.

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  • acmaurer, on 06/30/2008, -0/+22Thanks for posting. I have a brother with Crohn's, and although he's doing well it took forever for his doctors to 1) diagnose it and 2) treat it properly.
    • whiskerlickins, on 06/30/2008, -1/+2Yes, thanks! My best friend has Crohn's and it took the doctors a year and a half to diagnose. By that time the inflammation was so bad, the surgery was pretty major.
    • Kent767, on 06/30/2008, -1/+4My cousin was diagnosed a few years ago, he's lost all of his colon now, had 3 or 4 surgerys, and all the medicine they try isn't working. He is going to the hospital almost every 3 weeks or so. I hope there is something they can figure out for him, his case seems especially bad.
      • koft, on 06/30/2008, -11/+2Tell your cousin that when he's getting his endoscopy, if the doctor has one hand on his back, it's ok, but if the doc has both hands on his back during the procedure there is a problem. :)
      • kaplanfx, on 06/30/2008, -0/+1Your cousin likely has colitis. Colitis and chron's are related, however chrons is a disease of the small bowel not the colon.
      • Kent767, on 07/01/2008, -0/+1I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think that was his initial diagnosis, but it's progressed sense then.
    • liquidfirex, on 06/30/2008, -0/+2Wanna be a pal and post the symptoms just in case any diggers have the same issue?
    • bootie, on 06/30/2008, -0/+1Without sounding like a commercial....A drug called Tysabri is by far the most effective and life altering drug out there for Crohn's at the moment ( over a 70% remission rate). It is a once a month infusion with nearly zero side effects (drowsiness and headache day of infusion) unlike the other hard core immune suppressant drugs that are out there now which are also less that 30-40% effective.
      • HellifIno, on 06/30/2008, -0/+1Balancing your ***** gut bacteria is 100% effective vs Crohns. Take a round of antibiotics, repopulate your guts w/ either generic or specific probiotics (or, preferably both) over the next week or 2. Problem solved.

        Yeah, I make it sound a bit more simple than it is, but that really is about all there is to it. Honestly. Doctors in general don't get the relation between the bacteria in you digestive system and general health. The tide is turning, but it's turning really slowly, on a doctor-by-doctor basis
      • kaplanfx, on 06/30/2008, -0/+2@Helliflno: that's not really how it works. While it is certainly a huge help to have the proper amount of probiotics, the main cause of the disease is thought to be an autoimmune response wherein the small bowel is attacked by ones own immune system.
  • auntvonna, on 06/30/2008, -0/+1Interesting article, thanks for sharing it!
  • veganpa, on 06/30/2008, -1/+19Unfortunately, I can tell you first hand that Crohn's sucks. :-(
    • HellifIno, on 06/30/2008, -1/+1As said just above, remove the current gut bacteria, and repopulate w/ more beneficial bacteria. Hell, even antibiotics followed by live yogurt culture is better than what's in your guts right now! Not perfect, by any means, but at least not negatively influencing your digestion and health.
  • offthewagon, on 06/30/2008, -0/+12When are they going to map the Ulcerative Colitis genes? I'm sans colon because of that *****. I'd rather they had something in place before my kids have to deal with it.
    • Triticum, on 06/30/2008, -0/+3Many of these loci are probably shared with UC.
    • rrubiojr1975, on 06/30/2008, -0/+6Yes! I'm 9 years into without a colon because of UC and a big concern of mine is whether my kids are going to have to suffer like I did, should they ever develop the disease.

      Regardless, any progress of finding out what makes up Crohn's is a great development, since it in the same disease class. I just hope there is some breakthrough within our lifetime for UC too.
      • offthewagon, on 06/30/2008, -0/+2I have to admit, I'm grateful it was only UC. There's a cure for it, albeit a radical one. I can't imagine having to have my small intestines constantly under the knife, having to deal with scar tissue and frequent obstructions. I've only had one obstruction, thank God. That kind of pain is unfathomable until you've had to go through it. I imagine it only gets worse when you've had multiple surgeries.
      • Amadeus2490, on 06/30/2008, -0/+1Hey, i'm really sorry if this isn't the right time/place to ask, but my father has Chron's disease, and was told that he MAY have to have his colon removed.

        Can you retain normal bowel function after they remove your colon? Does it affect the way your body absorbs food (namely broth-y foods)?

      • HellifIno, on 06/30/2008, -2/+1Amadeus, removing his colon will likely do NOTHING for his overall health. Crohns disease is a bacterial imbalance in your bowels. More than one person has stumbled across this knowledge, but it is not common knowledge among doctors.
        Doctors base their diagnoses upon what they were taught. What they learned is what they practice. SOME try to keep up w/ some aspects of "modern" medicine, but, honestly, most just practice what they were taught.
        If you have a doctor that isn't open to new ideas you've read about, you might want to change doctors, because they're probably not keeping up w/ new ideas/treatments.
        Obviously, if they have solid science against your researched information, you might want to research some more and/or reconsider...
      • offthewagon, on 06/30/2008, -0/+1The body is good at adapting to the loss of bowel. The small intestines transform to become more like the large intestine--absorbing water and nutrition. Without the colon you go to the bathroom more and there is a greater chance for dehydration, but your body can tell you when your thirsty so it isn't something you have to be really nervous about.

        That said, Crohns can affect any part of the intestinal tract--colon included. It seems rather drastic to take the whole thing out knowing the crohns could just resurface elsewhere. A second opinion would be a good idea.

        Here's a good website: http://j-pouch.org/groupee/forums

        It mainly deals with colitis and colon related diseases, but there are plenty of people who have crohns there who can offer their experiences.
    • japface, on 06/30/2008, -0/+2yeah seriously i hope theres something for ulcerative colitis soon, i've got it myself. not too seriously but i hate taking meds all the time and dont really want to lose my colon.
      • offthewagon, on 06/30/2008, -0/+1Keep up the fight, brother. There are plently of people who can manage a slight case with meds. My advice is never taper off the asacol/colazol even if you get better. Wondering if you really need it isn't as bad as finding out you did after the fact.
    • TrevorBradley, on 06/30/2008, -0/+1Sadly for the UC folks, many of the CD genes are shared with Rhumatoid Arthritis, a much bigger group of people to market medicine for. Most of the new CD and RA meds are one and the same.

      I've got CD, and I feel bad for the UC folks. I'm in pain, I'm exhausted all of the time, but inflammation and ulceration of the large intestine sounds much worse.
  • HeadJam, on 06/30/2008, -2/+4My aunt has Crohn's. She can't wait for the affordable treatment to be out. They have one now, but it's really expensive. THANKS BIG PHARMA (or is it Farma)?
    • HellifIno, on 06/30/2008, -2/+1See above. Cheap, easy, and likely to work just fine.
  • FriedTurkey, on 06/30/2008, -0/+7I have a friend that has Crohns. It is a terrible disease. She never knows when she will get sick again and they have to take out chunks of her intestine. I have learned if she doesn't respond to phone calls or emails she is probably in the hospital. :-(
    • koft, on 06/30/2008, -12/+1And someday the emails will stop all together. heh
  • AwsmGy, on 06/30/2008, -2/+2This is great...but where's my cure?
    • bootie, on 06/30/2008, -0/+1Try Tysabri, has over a 70% remission rate, close to zero side effects and will save you from surgery....
      • HellifIno, on 06/30/2008, -1/+1Try repopulating your gut w/ "friendly" bacteria after a course of antibiotics. No drugs (antibiotics aren't drugs) and more effective.
  • xero69, on 06/30/2008, -9/+1Bummer that there are so many causes...

    First thing that popped into my mind:
    http://flat-d.com/products.html
  • vaga222, on 06/30/2008, -0/+5My girlfriend has Crohns, she was diagnosed last year after loosing 3 stone in 2 months. Good to see there are good people trying to cure it :)
  • hd95, on 06/30/2008, -3/+10A friend of mine's brother committed suicide to relieve the pain of this disease.
    • warban, on 06/30/2008, -0/+7As someone with Crohn's this is not surprising.
  • safacles, on 06/30/2008, -2/+16I have had Crohn's for 15 years. I can tell you it is not an easy disease to live with, and I have a particularly acute case. I was in and out of hospitals much of that first 10 years, but have found through diet and meditation some level of peace and management. Mostly, like everything in life, once I accepted that I could not change having CD and made peace with it, I realized that it's actually a blessing. CD forces me to eat healthier that most people, made me introspective at a young age, causes me to think differently than most people, and I was lucky enough to avoided a lot of the crap I saw my friends have to go through growing up in a for-the-most-part sick society. Does it suck to crap your pants as a teenager, yes? Is it the end of a person's life to be diagnosed? No way. My advice to anyone recently diagnosed: look into diet, naturapathic and other alternatives before submitting to a purely pharma path.
  • Triticum, on 06/30/2008, -0/+6This is an important result but there's still a lot of work left to do to understand this disease. For starters, they have to identify the individual genes affected at the novel loci. In other words, each of the 32 genetic variations (markers) that they identified just tells them that they're relatively close--within a handful of genes away from each marker. And even if they knew what each of the genes is and what it does, they only account for up to about a fifth of all the variance of Crohn's, combined. And then there's all the other genes that are involved in Crohn's that this study didn't identify. I hope to read more and more studies like this.
    • HellifIno, on 06/30/2008, -1/+1Did you know that identification of gut flora is a really hot new field of bioscience? Yeah, I'm not just spouting opinion up there. It's real. Your gut flora can cause/relieve Crohns. No genetic stuff needed.
    • HellifIno, on 06/30/2008, -1/+1Late, but:
      Heck, your entire health level has something to do w/ the bacteria in your stomach/bowels. Enough of a notable effect that Scientific American put out a recent article. Vague, a bit, but still interesting: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=jeremy-nichols ...
  • Triticum, on 06/30/2008, -1/+2What's up with the pic? A refugee camp? Bonnaroo?
  • jonnyfrag, on 06/30/2008, -0/+7Glad there is some progress on this. Research into this will help the UC folks too since it is so closely related. I can attest to the Chron's being related to RA (I'm only 35 and my hips and knees somedays make me think I'm in my 70s ) as well as asthma and diabetes being related too. Course my diabetes was caused by the steroids trying to make my Chrons better.

    Man , I musta gotten some really crappy genes.
  • huxleyan, on 06/30/2008, -0/+7To give outsider's a look on what Crohn's treatment costs:

    I get a dose or Remicade every 8 weeks and it has helped me immensely. The cost before insurance is $5100/treatment.

    It's a bag of IV fluid with 400mg of medicine and it's five thousand dollars.
    • stox, on 06/30/2008, -0/+2Remicade is nasty stuff. You might want to ask your gastro about tysabri. Although it costs about as much, far less side effects and a bit more efficacious. There were some major scares when it was first introduced, but those were later found to be interactions with other immuno-suppresant drugs. Taken alone, there appears to be little risk, especially when compared to Remicade.
    • kaplanfx, on 06/30/2008, -0/+1Have you had the discussion of using 6MP rather than Remicade. The long term effects of a steroid can be devastating, while the 6MP is designed to be taken for a lifetime.
  • Barbarino, on 06/30/2008, -1/+2A good friend of mine has it, I'm convinced this is a virus or bacteria issue, in the 3rd world, people don't get the disease.
    • offthewagon, on 06/30/2008, -0/+4Docs think it might have a trigger, like bacteria, and then it just runs rampant. But you still have to be susceptible to the trigger, and people from the third world usually aren't. It usually affects people who are Jewish or have Jewish ancestry.
      • kaplanfx, on 06/30/2008, -0/+1Agreed, I'm Jewish and my brother has it. Basically my whole family has pretty crappy digestive systems, as seems to be the case in many Ashkenazim Jews.
    • FriedTurkey, on 06/30/2008, -1/+4It's genetic. People in the 3rd world don't have the gene, As it was mentioned, it more often found in people with Jewish ancestry. If it was a bacteria or a virus you would think that 3rd world people would be affected by it more because they often live in not very clean environments.

      You should probably leave science to the experts.
    • bootie, on 06/30/2008, -1/+1Autoimmune disease.....genes it is!
    • sirroyal, on 06/30/2008, -1/+0People in the third world who move to modern cities get auto-immune disorders like everyone else. This includes Chron's, asthma, allergies, diabetes, etc. The Hygiene hypothesis some say account for third world countries not having immune disorders, but I doubt it's any one thing. In the third world they don't have all the chemicals and toxins like food additives, plastic, paint, cars, pharma drugs, etc. Modern society is full of man made crap. The odds that every third world country from Africa to South America and Malaysia has special genes is really unlikely.
  • ldw4686, on 06/30/2008, -0/+5Living with this disease is difficult - but when battling anything, you must forge ahead. I was diagnosed with this disease when I was 18 and had surgery at 19, and now with almost 9 years gone, haven't had to go through surgery again:) It is a complicated disease and I am glad to hear that they are making head way on it. When I first had it, the Dr's couldn't tell me anything about it. They just gave me a laundry list of things I couldn't eat and that was practically everything. I just hope we can find a treatment to cure it. Good luck to all who have this disease:)
  • mindlessknight, on 06/30/2008, -9/+1All of the elder scrolls games are incredible. They are based on fantasy too! I mean, from the very start of the game you have the choice to be a human-size cat or lizard, or your choice of three different types of elves!

    Oblivion just uses todays tech to bring fantasy that much closer to reality!
    The elder scrolls games are so much more open ended and controlled by the user than the classic rpg's, but don't get me wrong, I love those too!

    I have most all of the ones i played as a child on my pc now!
  • bootie, on 06/30/2008, -0/+2Without sounding like a commercial....A drug called Tysabri is by far the most effective and life altering drug out there for Crohn's at the moment ( over a 70% remission rate). It is a once a month infusion with nearly zero side effects (drowsiness and headache day of infusion) unlike the other hard core immune suppressant drugs that are out there now which are also less that 30-40% effective.
    • huxleyan, on 06/30/2008, -1/+1The drug (Tysabri) had been voluntarily taken off the market in February 2005 because of several cases of a serious brain disorder called progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, or PML. It is estimated, based on available data, that the risk of developing this disorder is 1 in 1,000

      • bootie, on 06/30/2008, -0/+1Yeah that's a joke...One death was because one Crohn's patient was on 3-4 immune suppressants which can cause death up to 10 years of having one dose as a side effect...he had no immune system left and should not have been in the trial. And the other is from a women that was in a combination trial for MS with Avonex and Tysabri and she didn't even have MS! There are over 30,000 people on the drug now with ZERO PML reported....there are outliers in every trial....do some research on PML with the other Crohns and MS drugs and you'll find they have a larger occurrence of PML with far nastier side effects!
      • bootie, on 06/30/2008, -0/+1OH, And has been back on the market for 2 years now making huge differences in MS patient's and Crohn's patient's lives.
  • cadmiumpaint, on 06/30/2008, -1/+6One of my good friends has Crohns......its an everyday struggle for her, but she copes. Some days are worse than others.

    She had the hardest time finding health insurance because of her ailment. She got denied by EVERY provider. She had to settle for a subpar state run service, and that was a struggle. College educated, fully employed, un-insurable. Gotta love the soulless, privatized American healthcare system that refuses to give sick people healthcare.

    Makes me ashamed to be an American.
  • truthhurts28, on 06/30/2008, -1/+1I have it, but obviously very small compared to most of you. I hasnt changed me too much, except i kind of watch what i eat. My main problem is cramps and the *****, and when i have an attack sometimes i will ***** blood for days. What is a good med to take for mild to moderate cases. My doc retired, got referred, got a prick that didnt want to help, quit going.
    • wertach, on 06/30/2008, -0/+1I have a mild case of CD and I'm taking Dicyclomine, it's cheap and if I watch what I eat, it helps a lot.
  • fenderjazz, on 06/30/2008, -0/+5Chron's sucks. I have a comparatively mild case by most standards. I'm able to stick to Pentasa and 6MP and keep the symptoms at bay. But not being able to eat some of my favorite foods, taking 8 pills a day, and constantly worrying that I might get worse and need surgery really starts to take a toll after a while.
    • kaplanfx, on 06/30/2008, -0/+1My brother has Chron's as well and has had the most success with 6MP.
  • DiggCommando, on 06/30/2008, -0/+2To those on here with Crohn's, please check out the Specific Carbohydrate Diet and read the book Breaking the Vicious Cycle by Elaine Gottschall. I have lived with Crohn's for 8 years now but the last two have been almost symptom free after I started on this diet. What worked for me may not work for everyone but after giving up on the pharma route, which was not doing much for me, these are the best results I've had. It is not easy and requires strict discipline but it's better than spending days at the hospital, loading myself up with drugs, or having a portion of my gut eventually ripped out.
  • warringgael, on 06/30/2008, -0/+2My cousin has Crohn's. She was hospitalized for six months with surgery after surgery. She went through her entire senior year of high school with a colostomy bag. Now she is finally doing better, w/o the bag, but my aunt is broke.
  • thejaymo, on 06/30/2008, -0/+3I have lived with crohns now for 6 and a half years, have had some nasty flare ups and an operation while i was at uni.. this is good news maybe to late for all of us on Digg; but for our children and everyone else out there who because of this sucky disease, has to take so many pills they rattle when they walk.
  • TrevorBradley, on 06/30/2008, -0/+2Remicade is a miracle drug, made me go from feeling like crap to feeling normal in hours (and you forget how far from normal you were).

    The sad part is that it only works for so long, and then (anecdotaly at least) it stops working. I had 5 good years on Remicade. At first my infusions were 3 months apart. Then I started feeling crappy at 11-12 weeks so we went to 12 weeks apart. Then 10 weeks, then 8 weeks. About a year ago I had one infusion last me about 4 weeks, then the next one lasted about 2 days. I went to Humira which worked for about a week with similar diminishing returns. I'm now on Entocort and Imuran and have been on disability for about a year now.

    For those of you on TNF-a class drugs, enjoy every day you've got, and hope these new drugs come out faster than your body figures how to trick the immunological locks.
  • BobCFC, on 06/30/2008, -0/+4Thank god I live in England.... had surgery 4 times and not cost me a penny.

    Gave up on medicine too, just controlling my diet... I guess post-op is different.
  • kaplanfx, on 06/30/2008, -0/+1It's amazing to see how many people suffer with this disease (my brother being one), and yet it is not very prevelent in the media.
  • cleansecolon, on 07/24/2008, -0/+0maybe the nature of the disease doesn't really make people comfortable talking about it.
  •  

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