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Large study identifies exact gut bacteria involved in Crohn's disease

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Posted 3/12/2014 10:13 PM (GMT 0)
Large study identifies exact gut bacteria involved in Crohn's disease
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140312132617.htm

I haven't even read it yet.... but the title sure caught my attention. Will give it a read now. Posted it on the UC board as well... Let's see what it has to say... if anything..
Posted 3/12/2014 11:14 PM (GMT 0)
If only they could use this information to find a cure...
Posted 3/13/2014 2:57 PM (GMT 0)
The full article can be found here: https://www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe/abstract/S1931-3128(14)00063-8

I really hope it helps researcher either find a cure or some better treatment options.
Posted 3/13/2014 5:00 PM (GMT 0)

There is a treatment already that uses this theory about bad bacteria and it has been around for many years, and it works,,, it is called the SCD diet !!!!!!

Thirty years ago the book "breaking the vicious cycle" came out stating that you can put CD into remission by diet change alone without drugs or turning off your immune system.  The book stated 30 years ago  that CD  was caused by an out of balance of bacteria in the gut, and by  changing your diet to a "no processed food" , "low carb" and "zero sugar" diet, you can kill off the bad bacteria  by depriving them of the sugar and carbs they feed on. Then by eating home made yogurt, you can repopulate you gut with new good bacteria which reduces inflammation.

There is a way already to use this study to treat your CD , it called SCD diet.

I have been in complete remission for 7 years after getting on the scd diet in 2007. 

Post Edited (NY-Sooner) : 3/13/2014 11:03:21 AM (GMT-6)

Posted 3/13/2014 5:44 PM (GMT 0)
I hope the research into this is expanded. Unfortunately, I seem to be backwards of most folks on this board---I have really bad experiences when adding probiotics or high probiotic foods. I usually suffer from an overgrowth that probiotics do not help--only antibiotics. If they can figure out the problem...maybe they can balance me the other way!
Posted 3/14/2014 11:34 AM (GMT 0)
HabsHockeyFan  ,,,, the reason probiotics and probiotic foods don't help you is that you have to kill off the bad drug ressitant bacteria first.  Without eliminating this bad bacteria, probiotics will do nothing.   By  following the SCD diet, you are eliminating all sugars and carbs and processed foods from your diet, which in turn, starve the bad bacteria to death after a few months because they have no more food to live on.  By eating home made yogurt every day, you are repopulating your gut wuth good bacteria.  Probiotic pills just don't have enough bacteria to repopulate you gut with the bacteria you need.  To get the same amount of bacteria that a cup of yougurt has, you would have to take 100 probiotic pills.  Home made yogurt is the best way to put good bacteria back into your system.  I suggest reading the book "breaking the vicious cycle" 
Posted 3/14/2014 11:51 AM (GMT 0)
Amen brother. Or Sister!
Posted 3/16/2014 9:24 PM (GMT 0)
I wish this could work for everyone....Sadly not the case.
Posted 3/17/2014 12:29 AM (GMT 0)
Well said NY!!
Posted 3/17/2014 1:27 AM (GMT 0)
NY-sooner, I hope you are simply being loose with your words when you say:

“By following the SCD diet, you are eliminating all sugars and carbs and processed foods from your diet ….”

That is absolutely untrue of the diet. And more importantly, no-one ought to eliminate all carbs from their diet, especially not for moths at a time!
I'm always curious what these 'bad bacteria' are that some presume to be starving out?
The SCD yoghurt may have a relatively large quantity of bacteria, but it is severely limited in variety. The notion that two or three strains of lactobacillus (which are only very minor components of the enormously populous gut microbiome) can somehow 'repopulate' the gut is misleading.

That article CM, is fairly vague. Perhaps there is more data on the specific strains being investigated. The research is leading in a very promising direction though.
Posted 3/18/2014 5:33 AM (GMT 0)
The post below mine has the link to the full study and strains. I posted the full one in the UC section as well .

SCD - when combined with Meds is awesome for me. As is for many. Others not so much.

As for the "bad bacteria" and all that, well the focus is actually more so on switching to single molecule sugars - simple carbs. In this sense an already impaired/inflamed GI track doesn't have to break anything down via enzymes to absorb. So you can look at it as giving your gut a bit of a break. The lack of complex carbs obviously then eliminates a fermentive food source for some bacteria. It was Elaine's belief (and doctor valentine's before her I believe) that the fermentive bacteria or bacteria that feed off of complex carbs might be at the root as an overgrowth. At times she singled out a few strains, and a few she thought were iffy or could swing both ways like bifo bacteria. Remember back then the guesstimate was maybe around 200 strains in our digestive system, flash to today and I believe it's now at around 10,000 plus 100+ strains of fungi.

Even still, she was one smart lady. Wise beyond her time.

Incidentally, her daughter, the one that recovered lives just a short distance from me. I've listened to them both prior to Elaine's passing a few years ago.

Post Edited (Canada Mark) : 3/17/2014 11:36:24 PM (GMT-6)

Posted 3/18/2014 2:17 PM (GMT 0)
This is extremely encouraging information. Finally, the medical community is moving from "autoimmune" meaning"we have no idea the cause", to something tangible. It shouldn't be long before they come up with an antibiotic designed to target the bad bacteria, and/or a tablet loaded with good bacteria that is designed to break down in the intestines, rather than the stomach. Sufferers will still have a genetic predisposition, but the need for these aggressive and potentially dangerous treatments will be reduced or eventually eliminated.
Posted 3/18/2014 7:23 PM (GMT 0)

comedybob said...
Finally, the medical community is moving from "autoimmune" meaning"we have no idea the cause", to something tangible.

The medical community moved on from autoimmune to innate immune deficiency years ago. Wiki sums it up: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crohn's_disease#Cause
Posted 3/18/2014 7:32 PM (GMT 0)
wiki= realism

MyCupOfCareIsEmpty said...

comedybob said...
Finally, the medical community is moving from "autoimmune" meaning"we have no idea the cause", to something tangible.

The medical community moved on from autoimmune to innate immune deficiency years ago. Wiki sums it up: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crohn's_disease#Cause

Posted 3/19/2014 4:30 AM (GMT 0)
NCOT you're still holding strong to the autoimmune/immune/Genetic'y aspect eh??? I caught this from another thread on here that I briefly scanned, haha. Hey wait - you changed your name!!

On the wiki link, personally I think it sums up the fact that no one has any clue whatsoever what the deal is on these darn diseases... And I think there is no general consensus. Even recently at that conference they were implicating specific bacteria and such and at yet another they were implicating autoimmune. about the only thing they both agree on is that sometimes suppressing the immune system seems to help - as to exactly why other than interference in inflammatory response they are still scratching their heads. And then there's the group all for immune stimulation though relatively small but perhaps growing.

As I said on another thread, I'm bacteria all the way, but my deep dark secret is that I'm terrified it IS actually autoimmune. At least with bacteria/fungus it can be dealt with. Autoimmune brings to mind drugs... forever. Scares the crap outa me. Surgery freaks me out to... I have no idea why.

I still agree with Old Mike though - I find it hard to believe I awoke one morning and immune system just decided to go wonky and start attacking itself on its own or that a genetic switch just flipped one day.

Here is a brief passage from my Immunity Text (Exploring Immunology- Concepts and Evidence page 274)

"Frankly, most autoimmune diseases we do not yet know why the immune response is triggered. In some there is clear evidence that infection is a trigger and it has been suggested that most or all autoimmune diseases may be precipitated by infections"

In other words it's suggesting that self-antigens are generated by the self killing of ummm... "infected" self cells. And that perhaps this then leads the body to recognize and attack certain self tissues when in fact it's causing harm. So this speaks to PAMP's (Pathogen-associated Molecular Patterns and DAMP's (Damage-associated Molecular Patterns) and the interplay (co-stimulation) between them and T-cell activation.

So perhaps after time the two groups (bacteria and autoimmune/immune folk) will learn to play nicely together... and maybe some progress can be made. Ya never know... stranger things have happened ;)

And maybe hidden within the bacteria in studies like these something will flush out. Personally I'm happy to see these studies and a lot more focus on bacteria.

On the genetics side, be it NOD2 or CARD15 and the 158 plus other genes they implicate - I find it interesting and intriguing that they all generally have to do with response to bacteria/virus/fungus... in the wiki link it even mentions the gene linked to unfolded protein response in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), what's interesting to me is that bacteria toxins often target the ER as they have easy access to it. At the same time I also tend to think or wonder if both the common and seemingly variable genes found in patients with IBD is just simply that we are ALL responding to a "something".. is our immune system triggering these to deal with something that it's having trouble clearing? so trying to "work it out" so to speak - and not so much a genetic defect that we were born with or was passed down to us.

Time tells all...

Sure makes for some interesting and heated discussions in places like these though. Haha.

Post Edited (Canada Mark) : 3/18/2014 10:36:21 PM (GMT-6)

Posted 3/19/2014 12:32 PM (GMT 0)
NCOT you're still holding strong to the autoimmune/

Fantastic reading comprehension skills.

I wrote in my last post: "The medical community moved on from autoimmune to innate immune deficiency years ago". It was the only thing I wrote; it's not like it was buried halfway in the middle of a wall of text.

With regard to your quoted passage, I already said I wasn't ill before getting Crohn's; I got it when I was 25. I was in perfect health before that; the last infection I'd had was when I was 19, which was a chesty cough which wouldn't clear up. Took one week's course of antibiotics which cleared it up like a shot. I think those were the only antibiotics I ever took in my life. I don't remember having any other infections in my life that I needed to take antibiotics for, and certainly no tummy bugs since I was a child.

I have absolutely no reason to believe an infection was the pathogenesis in my case. In fact I know it wasn't, unless the tummy bug I had when I was 8 or something lurked in my intestines for all those years and only struck when I was 25.

So please do stop being condescending towards the immune/genetics theory, there's a good chap. It's what works best for me and most suits my particular case.

Edit: Not that I think bacteria have no involvement. Somewhere along the line, they obviously do. I just don't think Crohn's will ever be nailed down to a single organism causing it - or even several organisms causing it. I do think there is a deficient immune system at play here, which may be responding to all kinds of things, including normally beneficial bacteria.

Post Edited (NiceCupOfTea) : 3/19/2014 6:41:30 AM (GMT-6)

Posted 3/19/2014 2:59 PM (GMT 0)
That's what's interesting actually - If memory serves I believe a type of Norovirus triggers Colitis in animals with an Immune Deficiency is an example often used. So going along the lines of a viral/fungal or bacterial infection triggering an actual "autoimmune" condition to set in. One might never know they were infected. Then wake up one morning and wham.
Posted 3/21/2014 2:03 AM (GMT 0)
I was diagnosed with Crohn's shortly after my mom was diagnosed with lung cancer. My mom always thought it was the stress of her diagnosis that caused the Crohn's. I remember rolling my eyes and telling her she was ridiculous....but it's as good a theory as any. I do think we have a genetic propensity and then something triggers disease...much like how cancer cells activate. For whatever it's worth, I did not have a lot of viruses or bacterial infections, and used very few antibiotics prior to my Crohn's diagnosis, and I never drank unpasteurized milk. I did have IBS my whole life...so maybe is was lurking Crohn's disease....I gave up trying to figure out the cause...I'm with NCOT...I think there has to be multiple causes and it is also different for different people.
Posted 3/21/2014 11:20 AM (GMT 0)
I personally believe that my Crohn's was caused by years on antibiotics. But like Canada Mark, strong drugs and surgery freaks me out, and potentially that is why I am drawn to a "simple" answer.
If the cause is Crohn's is many things, then there is little I can do to stop it. This is not something I wish to believe.
Posted 3/28/2014 7:32 PM (GMT 0)
I was 10 years old when I was diagnosed. I was perfectly healthy beforehand. When I was about 9 years old, I had a stomach flu... combine that with the fact that I swam in a lake across the street from our house that was on the same river that a paper mill was on up about 5 miles (and I know I had accidentally swallowed water from there).... I have a feeling it may have been a combination of things. Though I do find it ironic how there were 3-4 people with this disease on the same block, in the city where the paper mill is. This is also an area that is heavily agricultural. I can't take these factors out as a potential reason for my specific Crohn's.


Either way, I don't believe one specific thing in regards to food will help everyone. Like many who haven't had this disease forever, I was perfectly healthy eating the same types of food prior to getting Crohn's. Certain foods don't necessarily agree with me, and I will stay away from those. I eat what feels good, and live OK that way. I am also on a medicine that helps with the inflammation though.

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