Is irritable bowel disease (crohn disease and ulcerative colitis) involves genetics? or it purely environmental?

IBD is a complex disease which arises as a result of the interaction of environmental and genetic factors leading to immunological responses and inflammation in the intestine. This initiates an immune response against the gut mucosa that results in IBD (ulcerative colitis or crohn disease)
In case of crohn disease, the inflammatory reaction in mediated by T helper 1 cells. While in ulcerative colitis it is initiated by T helper 2 cells.
As I mentioned above, there is no specific cause to IBD. It is believed to be interactions between the environment, diet, and genetics. So, genetics play a rule in IBD. Also, if you have one of your relatives who had IBD, your chances of getting IBD increases up to 10 times, so I think genetics are important deciding factor.
A genetic component to IBD has been recognized for over a century. Research that has contributed to understanding of the genetics include studies of ethnic groups (e.g., Ashkenazi Jews), familial clustering, epidemiological studies, and twin studies. With the advent of molecular genetics, understanding of the genetic basis has expanded considerably, particularly in the past decade. The first gene linked to IBD was NOD2 in 2001. Genome-wide association studies have since added to understanding of the genomics and pathogenesis of the disease. More than 200 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs or "snips") are now known to be associated with susceptibility to IBD. One of the largest genetic studies of IBD was published in 2012 . The analysis explained more of the variance in Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis than previously reported.The results suggested that commensal microbiota are altered in such a way that they act as pathogens in inflammatory bowel diseases. Other studies show that mutations in IBD-associated genes might interfere with the cellular activity and interactions with the microbiome that promote normal immune responses

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The suffering that people with cancer live with!

Image
As a student doctor, I have seen many patients who had cancers growing in their bodies and don’t feel it and don’t have any symptoms until it is too late (until the tumor has metastasized to other organs) I have seen a patient who has lymphoma (a type of blood cancer) He didn’t feel anything; he literally had no symptoms, but one day he started to have some symptoms related to his respiratory system like cough, dyspnea, hemoptysis. When he did a chest x-ray, he was found to have massive pleural effusion (water on the lung) due to the tumor metastasized to his lung. He had an x-ray similar to that. Look at the left lung! Not only that but he also, when he was asked to do a CT scan on his abdomen, he was found to have the tumor metastasized to his liver. (Can you see these blackish areas? These are multiple tumor masses growing at his liver) I knew that this patient had a very bad prognosis and he most likely will pass away in a few months. It is very sad to know that. The
Read more

Can someone be born with a penis and vagina together?!

Image
That vaginas are the basis of human life. Not only because without a vagina you wouldn’t have been there, but also because without a vagina, something  else  wouldn’t have been there as well! Let me explain to you what is it. Did you that at some point in your life you had a vagina? yea vagina! For me, this is disturbing but still fascinating! Reproductive organs in human (whether as a male or female) during fetal life is the same. It is an incompletely differentiated vagina that is waiting a signal from your body to differentiate. If you are a male which means that you have XY chromosomes, genes on your Y chromosome will make this incompletely differentiated vagina turn into the male reproductive system. While if you are a female, this vagina will continue to differentiate more and more until it gives the final familiar shape. Take a look! Unfortunately, there are some unlucky males who have problems with the genes that are responsible for the differentiation of their genital organs.
Read more

Excessive meat consumption and its relation to hypertension and other diseases

Image
I am really shocked by the fact that many people think that the more meat they eat, the healthier they get and the better their health becomes! Let's crush this fact in this article. Let’s dive into some details about what can increased consumption of meat do to your body. I will begin with very very basic concepts related to basic physiology in our bodies and later I will show you what does the recent research and trends say. 1- I ncreased consumption of protein (steak) is associated with hypertension due to the effect of protein on our kidney and its ability to reabsorb sodium The topic may seem confusing but I will make it so simple as possible. We all aware that steak is a great source of protein, and all of us need a constant amount of protein to avoid collapsing our metabolic pathways. For now, I will talk about how excessive consumption of just protein is related to hypertension (not mentioning cholesterol and animal fat and their direct negative effect on our health) Meat i
Read more