Heredity and Crohn's

I have read alot about Crohn's and my head starts spinning with all the differing opinions on what causes our disease.  I've heard about the probability of it being hereditary, but I am the only in my extended family to have anything like Crohn's.  I am the mother of 2 teenage boys, and literally freak inside if they have one d episode.  I am sooo scared that this is something I could pass down to my children!!  Is anyone else the only one in their family to have this "gift" (haha)?  Does anyone know statistics on heredity and Crohn's? 

 

I am the youngest child of 5 and I am the only one of my siblings who has it. I also have no close relatives who have it either. Sometimes one person in a family might have one autoimmune disease like Crohns and another person might have Rheumatoid Arthritis or another autoimmune disease.

I have crohn's and my mom has UC, I got sick with my CD in my early 20's, my mom didn't get sick with her UC until after I got sick first, she was in her mid 60's...IBD is definitely hereditary, they just aren't sure yet how it's passed like the way they know with cystic fibrosis for example.

But researchers do estimate that if one parent has an IBD there is a 10- to 15- fold increased risk their offspring will develop an IBD (either CD or UC) compared with those who do not have a parent with IBD.

Smoking (including second-hand smoke) is one KNOWN trigger for crohn's disease in particular.

It's also estimated that with identical twins, if one twin has CD there is a 40-60% chance the other twin will also have the disease....there are also extream cases of familial IBD where nearly every member of a family suffers from the condition.

Also, check out this link from the CCFC...

http://www.ccfc.ca/English/research/todaysresearch.html


:)

i only know of my maternal grandfather having CD. it skipped his 3 kids. my sister doesnt have it, her 2 daughters dont have it, and nor does my identical twin brother (the healthiest person i know).

I got the gift! I don't know about my extended family on my mother's side but my brother from the same mother has it too. HOORAY. Thanks ma.

all my close family doesn't have it but some distant cousin of my dad has it apprantly,so what you think the chances of my kids hafing crohns if i have crohns and my bf's mum has it?

tsitodawg said...
. My late grandmother from the same side suffered from Ulcerative Colitis, but we now feel that it was more than likely Crohn's disease.

Why do you all feel that it was more likely crohn's and not UC that your grandmother suffered with? Just curious because they are both an IBD...my mom has UC and I have CD, we're the only ones (so far) in my family that have an IBD.

:)

Based on my limited experiences, I believe there are three components to Crohn's; I'm sure two of them will be controversial to say the least.

1) Presence of an organism or organisms, possibly including MAP.

2) Genetics. There are a whole pile of genes that have been correlated with Crohn's, including some that are correlated with faulty bacterial resistance. The differences in severity among individuals may be attributable largely to the type and number of these genes.

3) Gut environment. There are a number of studies pointing towards "bad" food and an increased incidence of Crohn's. Based on the Paleolithic diet (whether one wishes to believe it or not), humans are simply not constructed to consume large quantities of carbohydrates.

With too many carbs and the presence of bacterial overgrowth in the gut- possibly including ulceration and colonization with MAP- combined with bad genes, one may get Crohn's. It's clear that no two components alone can do it, or the incidence would be much higher. I suspect that due to industrial-scale milk production (leading to the pooling of lactate from many hundreds of cows to make milk) has increased the spread of the putative causative organism, and the increase in inexpensive carbohydrates (plus the whole low-fat diet nonsense) has lead to an increase in bad gastric environments.

Fixing any one of the three may lead to a remission, or possibly a cure. The Selby protocol (involving multiple years of nasty anti-tuberculosis drugs) works on #1, inducing remission some 95% of the time- although many relapse because they finish the course of drugs, the organism is either not gone or is re-introduced, and the bad gut environment is still present.

The genetics issue has been tackled by stem cell modalities, indicating that "fresh" genes that *are* capable of handling whatever bacterial problems are present will work. It is dose-dependent, meaning it is more than just a coincidence.

Lastly, if the gastric environment is changed, the patient may go into remission or (by some accounts) even be "cured" (whatever that means with Crohn's). See also: diets such as Gottschall (The Specific Carbohydrate Diet), Lutz (Life Without Bread), and The Maker's Diet, as well as Atkins' low-carb diet. Such an approach is similar to antibiotic therapies in that it can take 2-3 years to shut out the disease, and there's no guarantee it won't recur once the patient goes back to their old ways.

I was diagnosed with Crohn's in January after suffering my whole life with symptoms.  No one in my family was known to have it but my great grandfather died of a bowel obstruction at a very young age.  My uncle recently had a bowel obstruction so I wonder, even though he did not receive an official diagnosis, if he may have it also.  He has always had stomach problems like me.  I wonder how many people had Crohn's and did not know it before all the diagnostic tools were available. 

Besides the hereditary factor it's important to look at how the immune system is involved as well...The lack of the XBP1 gene disables the normal communication between intestinal epithelial cells and gut bacteria, resulting in dysfunctional immune response and disease.

:)