Showing posts with label Colitis. Show all posts

Drug for Colitis, Crohn's Disease Shows Promise


By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 21 (HealthDay News) -- An experimental drug may help some people who have inflammatory bowel disease that has failed to respond to current medications, two new clinical trials find.
The drug, called vedolizumab, is being developed to treat the two main forms of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) -- ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. Both arise when the immune system launches an abnormal attack on the lining of the digestive tract, leading to chronic inflammation and symptoms such as abdominal cramps, diarrhea and rectal bleeding.
In the new trials, reported in the Aug. 22 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found that vedolizumab worked in some cases where standard IBD medications had failed.
The drug was more effective for colitis than for Crohn's, however, and an expert not involved in the studies said he suspects vedolizumab might be approved for colitis first.

Read the full story at Web MD
Colitis

Irritable Bowel Syndrome: Symptoms, Treatment & Prevention


Amber Angelle, MyHealthNewsDaily Contributor   |   May 28, 2013 02:34pm ET

Common Stomach Bacteria
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a common disorder in Americans. According to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, one in every five men and women has IBS. Women are two times as likely to have the disorder. Half of all cases are diagnosed before age thirty-five.

Despite its high prevalence in the population, much is unknown about IBS. This is due in part because the area affected, the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, is so dynamic. The GI tract is comprised of the stomach, small intestine and colon (a.k.a. large intestine). It’s influenced by the immune and nervous systems, and contains hundreds of different types of bacteria that aid digestion.

 Read more at Live Science 
Colitis

IBD and Melanoma: Mayo Researchers Find a Correlation


By Brett Spiegel, Everyday Health Staff Writer
MONDAY, May 20, 2013



 If living with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) wasn't hard enough, patients with the digestive disorders Crohn's and colitis may be at an elevated risk for developing skin cancer too, according to research presented at the Digestive Disease Week conference in Orlando.
Researchers at Mayo Clinic discovered the correlation between IBD diagnoses and an eventual diagnosis of melanoma, a very serious form of skin cancer often attributed to sun exposure. An analysis of seven years worth of published studies about IBD uncovered about 180 cases of melanoma diagnosed in 170,000 patients who already had IBD (roughly 90,000 with Crohn's disease and 80,000 with ulcerative colitis). The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that over 60,000 people were diagnosed with melanoma in 2009, of which about 9,000 died.
"Even though we included both population- and clinic-based studies ... which are at minimal risk of selection bias and more generally applicable, the increased risk of melanoma continued to be significant," the researchers write in the review. The Mayo findings suggest that having IBD puts patients at a 37 percent rate of being more likely to develop melanoma. 
The analysis identified only a correlation — an association between two factors that doesn't necessarily prove that one is responsible for the other — between melanoma and IBD, not a causal connection.
cancer

Do Intestinal Problems Cause a Vitamin B-12 Deficiency?

By Stephen Christensen




Vitamin B-12, or cobalamin, is a member of the B-complex family. Even though it is water soluble -- excess intake is easily eliminated in your urine -- your liver stores enough vitamin B-12 to last for up to six years, according to "The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy." Vitamin B-12 is the only vitamin that contains an essential mineral -- cobalt -- and it possesses the most complex molecular structure of all vitamins. Absorption of food-based vitamin B-12 involves a coordinated series of intestinal events.

Absorption

Vitamin B-12 must first be liberated from foods through the actions of gastric acid, which is secreted by parietal cells in your stomach lining. Once freed, B-12 is quickly bound by R proteins -- another product of the cells lining your stomach -- which transport vitamin B-12 into your small intestine. Pancreatic enzymes in the upper part of your small intestine cleave R proteins from vitamin B-12, which is immediately recaptured by intrinsic factor, yet another protein secreted by your gastric parietal cells. The intrinsic factor-B12 complex, or IF-B12, is eventually absorbed when it binds to special receptors in the lower end of your small intestine.







Malabsorption

A number of intestinal problems can interrupt vitamin B-12 processing and prevent its absorption into your bloodstream. If your stomach stops producing acid or intrinsic factor -- common occurrences in older people, in people taking certain ulcer medications and in a condition called pernicious anemia -- vitamin B-12 is not efficiently liberated from your foods or absorbed through your lower intestine. Other conditions, such as Crohn's disease and celiac disease, interfere with the uptake of IF-B12. The January 2011 issue of "The New England Journal of Medicine" describes genetic disorders that alter the IF-B12 receptors in your intestinal wall and prevent B-12 absorption.


Read more...
Colitis

Gluten free foods 'should be stopped on the NHS'




By Peter Russell
WebMD UK Health News
Medically Reviewed by Dr Rob Hicks
14th February 2013 

Doctors should stop prescribing gluten-free foods to patients with coeliac disease, say experts. They argue that it is a waste of money which would be better spent on other services for people with the condition.
However, one coeliac disease charity says it is concerned that support for people with the disease is being questioned and warns that people on low incomes in particular could be penalised if access to suitable food on prescription is withdrawn.

Damage to the gut

Coeliac disease is not a food allergy or a food intolerance but is an autoimmune disease caused by gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye and barley - triggering an immune reaction in those with coeliac disease Common sources of gluten include bread, pasta, cakes and biscuits, but it is often listed as an ingredient in favourite foods such as fish fingers, sausages and gravies.
Gluten causes damage to the gut in people with the disease.
Coeliac disease affects at least one in 100 people in the UK but many people with the condition are never diagnosed.
Gluten-free staple items such as bread and flour were first made available on prescription in the 1960s when there was limited access to these alternatives other than through the NHS. However, even today patients still obtain gluten-free supplies on prescription through pharmacies and the latest figures from 2011 show that the NHS in England spent £27 million on these items.
Colitis

Drinking Pig Worms to Fight Crohn's Disease



By JULIELYNN WONG M.D.
Sept. 5, 2012


Eight years ago, New Yorker Herbert Smith did the unthinkable -- he swallowed thousands of pig whipworm eggs in a desperate bid to quell his advancing Crohn's disease.
The microscopic eggs, invisible to the naked eye, were suspended in a liquid solution.
"There was nothing to it," said the 33-year old financial analyst, who uses a pseudonym to talk about his worm-drinking ways. "It was drinking half a cup of salty water."
At that moment, he said, "I felt excitement and definitely hope."
Colitis
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