Interesting article about MAP

That's interesting! I am a big believer in the genetic + causative trigger theory!

Great article. gutpathogens.com has info on testing and treatment.

This is news, recent news. It is like someone finally turned on the lights.

Published online 2010 December 17

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3031217/?tool=pmcentrez

"For a given age, infection with a small dose of MAP causes ulcerative colitis, while infection with a large dose of MAP causes Crohn's disease

As countries become westernized, meaning specifically the introduction of MAP-contaminated beef and dairy foods and the corresponding environmental pollution by MAP-infested beef and dairy cattle feces, their populations first develop ulcerative colitis and then again after a delay of several years develop Crohn's disease:

MAP is one of the subspecies of the Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) group of microorganisms [74]. Normal water treatment processes such as filtration and chlorination amplify rather than eliminate MAC organisms by killing off their competitors [75,76]. In addition, MAC organisms grow on tap water pipes [77], in biofilms [78] and on plastic water bottles [79]. MAP has been identified in drinking water in the United States [80,81] and elsewhere [82]. It is estimated that MAC organisms may be present in drinking water on the level of up to 700,000 or 7 × 105 organisms per liter of water [77]. If an individual drinks 2 liters of water a day, it will take just over 2 months to ingest 108 or "massive numbers" of MAP organisms.

In the study above [73], ulcerative colitis patients were able to clear large doses of E. coli, unlike the Crohn's patients. The author believes that ulcerative colitis patients have a more aggressive response to any dose of MAP, whether small or large, whereas Crohn's patients can handle small doses of MAP but not large ones. So patients develop ulcerative colitis even when infected with small doses of MAP.

The two routes of MAP infection: manure and milk
MAP is excreted in an infected animal's feces and secreted in its milk. There are, therefore, 2 different routes of infecting humans with MAP: fecal-oral transmission via contaminated water, and consumption of contaminated milk or products made from contaminated milk. A careful examination of the literature reveals that routes of infection that result in concentrating MAP result in a greater likelihood of developing Crohn's disease rather than ulcerative colitis.

The reported clusters of Crohn's disease associated with fecal-oral transmission have involved the use of manure as fertilizer [21,87] and possible fecal contamination of treated (tap) water [88], untreated (well) water [89] and surface water used for recreation [20]. Direct contact with dairy cattle feces has also been associated with an increased risk of ulcerative colitis in adult male farm workers

There is a particularly high incidence of Crohn's disease in cities with rivers running through them, as exemplified by the author's home of Spokane, Washington, in the United States [91] and Cardiff, in the United Kingdom [85,92-94]. In Cardiff, the high-incidence Crohn's disease "wards" are adjacent to the river in a pattern exactly downwind of the prevailing wind pattern, in contrast to ulcerative colitis cases that are spread throughout the city's wards [94-96]. The author believes that the MAP organism is concentrated in the aerosolized water bubbles, and it is this concentration of MAP bacteria to large numbers by the aerosolization process [97] that results in Crohn's disease rather than ulcerative colitis in infected patients.

The second route of MAP transmission to humans is through contaminated milk. Despite the concerted study of the possible transmission of MAP to humans from pasteurized milk [98,99], the reported clusters of Crohn's disease suggest that it is unpasteurized or raw milk or milk products that carry the greater risk of infection. The author believes that the potentially large numbers of MAP in raw milk [21] and cheese [87] are the cause of the associated clusters of Crohn's disease; whereas the logarithmically smaller number of MAP organisms [100] in pasteurized milk [101] might trigger ulcerative colitis [102,103].
Finally, the literature suggests that MAP in milk is more invasive than MAP in water, because of the organism's passage through mammary gland epithelial cells and because of the hyperosmolar nature of milk [104].The author speculates that the association between sugary cereals and an increased risk of Crohn's disease [105-107] and ulcerative colitis [108,109] may be a result of the increase in osmolarity of the milk caused by the sugar in the cereal, and decreasing the osmolarity of fluid in the digestive tract by carbohydrate-restricted diets [110,111] may be the cause of their reported efficacy in treating both Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.

We can end the "public health tragedy" [161] of Crohn's disease, and ulcerative colitis, in our lifetimes."

My wife never drank milk that I saw yet I always did and I got UC while she did not, meanwhile I have had 2 neighbors with UC and our water plant messed up before with excess chlorine not that a normally managed water plant could not do the same per the article. Also I did the fertilizer and the yard work - she was in the kitchen.

Levi said...
For YEARS and YEARS I drank close to 1/2 gallon of milk per day.

Same here milk protein shakes, milk after dinner, milk with cereal all day long...

I wonder about kefir made with raw or pasturized milk? It's been touted as a treatment for UC and crohns. What about yogurt?

I thought the article said that raw milk was an even greater risk?

Alba29 said...
The article states that pasteurization and UC are related, and MAP survives in pasteurized milk. I got sick after moving to US and having pasteurized milk for the first time in my life. Both sides of my family grew up with raw, no antibiotics, pastured milk (boiled to kill bacteria) and they've never had intestinal issues.
I make SCD yogurt now with raw milk (boiled to 185 degrees) and feel much better. Just got some kefir grains and will try some next.

This is interesting - I hope more tests and info are gathered on this.

I'm not too sure if I missed it but I couldn't find an explanation on why some people develop UC or Crohns and others don't?

This is exciting and interesting. I think the relationship of smoking discussed is also particularly interesting since I am one of the x-smokers who developed UC. I hope they find a treatment/cure based on the research.

Great article. thx for posting.

If UC and CD are caused by this bug, I wonder why antibiotics don't help, or even make things worse? Perhaps MAP is one of those hardy bugs that survives the antibiotics and then thrives when it's competition is taken down.

He doesn't say a peep about potential treatments, or how hard MAP is to control or get rid of. I wonder if anyone is doing or preparing to do studies that see the effect of killing off the MAP in someone with UC or CD... will have to see.

C_G_K, I posted a link in my above response about a treatment in trials: Myoconda. It sounds like it is a 3 part antibiotic.

Here is some info I found on Johne's Disease, which is MAP in animals, and also a discussion on humans getting it, as Crohns.

http://www.johnes.org/general/faqs.html#1

"Can Johne's disease be cured with antibiotics?

No. In the few studies that attempted to treat Johne's disease with antibiotics, symptoms appeared to subside but animals relapsed after therapy was halted. As with other mycobacterial infections (for instance, human tuberculosis) multiple antibiotics must be injected or given orally daily for months. For most animals, this is cost-prohibitive as well as infeasible. For more detailed information visit the page on "Antimicrobial Therapy".


Can humans get Johne's disease?

The term “Johne’s disease” is used only to describe the clinical illness in ruminants that occurs after MAP infection.

There is a human ailment however called “Crohn's disease” that in several ways resembles Johne's disease. Crohn’s disease is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that has no known cause and no known cure. In some studies MAP has been found in tissues of Crohn’s disease patients more often than controls. Some researchers believe MAP is the cause of Crohn's disease for at least a subset of patients. The majority of gastroenterologists, however, do not; they believe that MAP, if found in this subset of patients, is simply a by-stander amongst the many other organisms that are found in a malfunctioning gastrointestinal tract. No connection has been shown between contact with animals with Johne's disease, dairy product consumption and Crohn's disease. This aspect of MAP is a complex and controversial area of scientific investigation."

look at this:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2565950/

I remember awhile back posts on here where people where helped by chewing on cinnamon sticks, I wonder if this is why.