Eating SCD

In this meta study, only about one third of IBD patients reviewed would have been eligible to participate in FDA studies on the efficacy of biological agents (Adalimumab, Certolizumab pegol, Infliximab, Natalizumab, etc.) for IBD.

Most patients with moderate–severe IBD evaluated in an outpatient practice would not qualify for enrollment in a pivotal RCT of biological reagents; this finding raises important questions about their therapeutic efficacy beyond the clinical trial populations.

Here’s your link.

I used to hope that gene therapy would be the magic bullet for IBD. Then it was stem cell therapy. Now I’m hanging my hopes on knowledge gained from the Human Microbiome Project. It’s basic tenets align with the research by Doctors Haas, Elaine Gottschall and even my own experience.

One of the first steps in this global collaborative effort was to survey the microbial zoo on enough healthy people to constitute what the “normal” range of organisms are that live in and on us. Hopefully that knowledge will help determine how to help a variety of ailments including IBD.

This first step has been completed and the news has broken all over the place:

The National Human Genome Research Institute.

The Broad Institute.

Indiana University.

Harvard School of Public Health.

Be sure to see their map of the diversity in the human microbiome.

University of North Carolina Charlotte.

The Forsyth Institute.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

The Public Library of Science.

See the link at the bottom of the article for their Human Microbiome Project Collection.

Washington University in St. Louis.

hy-poth-e-sis : \hī-ˈpä-thə-səs\ (noun)

1. A supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.

If you follow research for Crohn’s disease or other auto-immune problems you eventually run into the idea of the  “hygiene hypothesis”. The basic concept is that when people are exposed to dirt, germs, allergens, microbes, and other unhygienic conditions early in their lives they are less likely to develop auto-immune problems like asthma, allergies and even Crohn’s disease. I believe the correlation between the two has been accepted as fact, but until the study linked below, I’ve not seen evidence of possible causation.

Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) have conducted a study that provides evidence supporting the hygiene hypothesis, as well as a potential mechanism by which it might occur.

Here’s your link.

From the Nutritional Immunology and Molecular Medicine Laboratory at Virginia Tech:

The Nutritional Immunology and Molecular Medicine Laboratory (NIMML) research team at Virginia Tech has discovered important new information on the efficacy of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) in treating Crohn’s disease, a form of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). CLA is a naturally occurring acid found in meat and dairy products known for its anti-cancer and immune modulatory properties.

Here’s your link.

The concept of “Standard of Care” is a bit subjective. See this wikipedia entry for more, but the basic idea is that the standard of care is what any competent physician would do for that particular patient in that particular situation. This can vary somewhat with local practices. The American College of Gastroenterolgy provides clinical guidelines that GI’s can use along with their clinical experience and professional judgment to determine the course of treatment for your IBD. The ACG publishes these guidelines as a list on their website. You can find the list of guidelines here. Scroll down for the Crohn’s and colitis entries.

Of course other nations have their own professional associations:

Here is a guideline published by GUT, an International Journal of Gastroenterolgy and Hepatology in 2004.

Perhaps these published guidelines will be helpful when you are trying to understand the advice of your physician.

Research from the University of Bristol:

Scientists have been unclear for some time about how most probiotics work. A new study has found a scientific ‘design’ for a probiotic that could be used to treat inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), such as Crohn’s disease.

Continue reading ‘Research: Probiotic to treat inflammatory disease?’