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How far s a cure away??

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Ulcerative Colitis
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Posted 6/30/2010 11:16 AM (GMT 0)
Sorry but I just have to put this one out there!

I know everyone must think about it. How long might a cure be coming for this darn illness? Will we see one in the next 10 years?
Posted 6/30/2010 11:22 AM (GMT 0)
Doubtful, but one can hope! :) Heck it took them an extremely long time to find the common gene we share. But I do have hope for the future generation that a cure will be found!
Posted 6/30/2010 11:34 AM (GMT 0)
I highly doubt it
Posted 6/30/2010 12:12 PM (GMT 0)
I think it'll take longer than that, though bone marrow therapy for younger sufferers is looking promising.
Posted 6/30/2010 12:56 PM (GMT 0)
Yes, stem cells will be the way forward too. It's already being used for many AI diseases including CD with quite a lot of success. I think there are cures out there, depending on the causes of someone's UC. If it's food intolerance then it will likely be an elimination diet such as the SCD, if it's dysbiosis then it might be HPI/FT. If it's viral/infectious, then antibiotic protocols and probiotics. The problem is finding out what the sources of a particular case of UC are and then finding/tweaking/sticking with a treatment long enough to see results. I think that UC is more a set of symptoms which stem from various causes and not a "disease" per say. I'm sure most will disagree.
Posted 6/30/2010 1:04 PM (GMT 0)
Killcolitis, I agree with you. The way I tend to think about it is that it's a bunch of diseases with similar symptoms. I can't think of any other way to explain how it is that we all respond to different treatments, and that for some, probiotics help, for some, flagyl helps, etc.
Posted 6/30/2010 1:06 PM (GMT 0)
I don't exactly disagree killcolitis. I think UC boils down to inflammation, which means we know the immune system is somehow involved for everyone, but I do believe there could be several triggers for that "attack" call. So, maybe some day there will be classifications depending on the triggers and treatments used to rebalanced the immune system and the intestinal flora. I do agree that personalized medicine is the future of IBD treatments. I don't think we will see a cure in our life times, although, you never know. I have heard some incredible things about stem cell therapies in the early stages of development.
Posted 6/30/2010 3:26 PM (GMT 0)
I agree with you completely, Killcolitis!! I've yet to encounter one person who has walked the same UC path as my daughter (no luck finding someone even close!).........definitely a 'to each his own' sort of disease. Inflammation seems to be the only common thread.
Posted 6/30/2010 6:07 PM (GMT 0)
Nobody has a clue of the causes of Ulcerative Colitis and so I doubt I will live to see a cure for this disease
Posted 6/30/2010 6:09 PM (GMT 0)
very doubtful there will ever be a cure.

q
Posted 6/30/2010 7:29 PM (GMT 0)
I think the cure will come when we can replace organs with ones grown in a lab.
I think some day replacement will become routine for different organs, like eyes, lungs, colons...I think they already grow skin in a lab.

25 years?
Posted 6/30/2010 7:43 PM (GMT 0)
Peety, that will not cure IBD, it's our faulty immune system that causes the disease to specifically atttack our intestines, so simply replacing the intestines will not ever work, you have to minipulate the immune system (this is why intestinal transplants don't work either)...stem cells to clear out and re-boot our faulty immune system is a logical and likely cure for IBD.

And it's already in the makings, there are test subjects with IBD that have gone through this, now it's a matter of "time" to see if it can actually be considered a cure and not just a long term remission.

Posted 6/30/2010 7:54 PM (GMT 0)
I kind of like UC as a condition/disease with multiple causes also.

If you told somebody 20 years ago that 70% of cervical cancer would be preventable by a vaccine or that the majority of peptic ulcers could be cured with antibiotics, they probably would not have believed it.

I think there is a very good chance that much more will be understood about the disease and that the current stone age symptom treatments will be greatly improved on in 10 years. I think probiotics are just sitting there waiting for researchers to improve strains and do serious trials. Maybe not a cure but a maintenance routine that works for most people for a lifetime remission and ways to prevent the disease in many people? 10 years is definitely possible.

We get hit with so many advancements and so many breakthroughs in science and technology that we get numbed to how much progress is really going on. Just a anti-inflammatory that worked systemically(rather than relying on unreliably topically treating the colon) would be huge.
Posted 6/30/2010 8:34 PM (GMT 0)

killcolitis said...
Yes, stem cells will be the way forward too. It's already being used for many AI diseases including CD with quite a lot of success. I think there are cures out there, depending on the causes of someone's UC. If it's food intolerance then it will likely be an elimination diet such as the SCD, if it's dysbiosis then it might be HPI/FT. If it's viral/infectious, then antibiotic protocols and probiotics. The problem is finding out what the sources of a particular case of UC are and then finding/tweaking/sticking with a treatment long enough to see results. I think that UC is more a set of symptoms which stem from various causes and not a "disease" per say. I'm sure most will disagree.

My GI and surgeon agree. This is why I can't be definitively diagnosed with either CD or UC and have been so hard to treat
Posted 6/30/2010 9:44 PM (GMT 0)
A scientist working in IBD, said a couple of years ago, that a cure for Ulcerative Colitis was roughly 18 years away.  I can't remember which publication this was, but I do recall reading about his comments it in the UK IBD newsletter - NACC.

 

Posted 6/30/2010 9:44 PM (GMT 0)
Pam, I have also not been diagnosed, and judging from your signature, "unspecified UC" is the way to explain that. I guess I should change mine since I actually wrote it out... LOL
Posted 6/30/2010 11:55 PM (GMT 0)
I think our best bet for a cure is stem cell treatment. But it's probably not going to happen anytime soon, unfortunately. AI diseases in general do not receive that much research funding, esp. when compared to cancers, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease (and beauty products--think the eyelash growing rx).
Posted 7/4/2010 5:05 PM (GMT 0)
I believe the cure is less than a year away and that a UC sufferer will discover it. In my experience UC does not boil down to inflammation since I have UC and no inflammation in my colon; at least not anymore.
Posted 7/4/2010 5:21 PM (GMT 0)

NuffinButtTrouble said...
I believe the cure is less than a year away and that a UC sufferer will discover it. In my experience UC does not boil down to inflammation since I have UC and no inflammation in my colon; at least not anymore.

How did you make it the inflammation go away?
Posted 7/4/2010 8:12 PM (GMT 0)
My hypothesis:

I also agree with KillColitis that UC is the result of a number of different irritants which are specific to different people. Unlike Crohns, UC is the result of the terminal ileum's underproduction of phosphatidylcholine (PC) for the epithelial boundary of the large intestine. This deficiency allows the specific irritants (which affect everyone differently) to come into contact with the intestinal wall. A number of studies over the past decade have shown that supplementation of PC with delayed-release capsules (similar to those used to dispence Mesalamine) substantially reduces the symptoms of UC even in patients who are steroid-dependent.

I realize that my statement is irresponsibly conclusory given that the research on which I base my hypothesis has not been universally accepted and still must undergo years of peer-reviews and further phaseII and III testing. However, I believe that the studies already published on the subject are extremely convincing and I look forward to mass market drug products in the near-future.

I encourage everyone to research for themselves. I've included a few of the studies and the website of a company formed by the German doctors to bring PC-based pharmaceuticals to market. As far as a cure goes, it would probably require genetic alteration of the terminal ileum's properties.

http://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(06)00092-8/fulltext
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20048683
http://www.biospace.com/news_story.aspx?NewsEntityId=169289
http://lipid-therapeutics.com/index_en.html

Deferentially,

palmtree19
Posted 7/4/2010 10:26 PM (GMT 0)
Why cure it? No money if there is a cure. Think... It's all about the $$$$!
Posted 7/5/2010 4:17 AM (GMT 0)

Zippy123 said...

NuffinButtTrouble said...
I believe the cure is less than a year away and that a UC sufferer will discover it. In my experience UC does not boil down to inflammation since I have UC and no inflammation in my colon; at least not anymore.

How did you make it the inflammation go away?

Sometime ago I decided to avoid processed sugars, I also avoided diary products except eggs, but I think processed sugars was the biggest culprit...my colon is normal now but I still have UC. At the moment I don't need to take probiotics or anti-fungals anymore...diet only helps so much, light exercise also helps in a big way and the correct balance of minerals/vitamins helps as well and rest.

good luck,
NBT
Posted 7/5/2010 8:23 AM (GMT 0)
Palmtree,
Thanks for the information, it's promising. When reading it I realized that when my daughter was diagnosed last year the first naturopath we consulted suggested a product called PhosCol. She claimed she'd seen amazing results with it. I never did buy it at the time, but it's pure PC. I might give it a try. It's not delayed release but if we need it, I might try it in an enema as well as by mouth.
It's great that they've already partnered with a pharmaceutical company. This looks like a good treatment which might actually make it to market.
s
Posted 7/5/2010 12:33 PM (GMT 0)
I have been taking phosphatidylcholine (PC) and lecithin for years (check my signature) for UC and to help lower my cholesterol, which it does. But my cholesterol would still shoot upwards whenever I pigged out at McDonald's.

I suppose PC will help with UC also but that doesn't necessarily mean that you can stop watching if certain foods aggravate symptoms.
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