My uncle and I both have uc

Just found out my uncle was diagnosed with left sided uc about 8 years ago and I was diagnosed with proctitis august last year and we only just found out that we both have the same thing! Quite funny though lol. Also found out my cousin on the same side of the family (his niece) has Chrones disease. When I was first diagnosed I was told uc is not genetic ...that's three people in one family with an Ibd...is that genetics or just bad luck?

Any opinions appreciated. Thanks.

There is a strong genetic link and can run in families. Myself, my sister, my uncle and my cousin all got zapped. I'm sure there's others somewhere in the family line that I don't know about.

I found that an uncle on my moms side has Crohns once I was diagnosed with UC. I have an aunt on my dads side with celiacs ... otherwise no other diagnosed IBD or anything for my family... :/

My sister has Crohns, her daughter has Crohns, my other sisters daughter has Crohns, I am the only one with U.C...

Dr. Kevin Rioux wrote a paper (I have via my CCFC journals) called "The Genetics and Inheritance of IBD" He basically describes in this paper that although much remains unknown about the cause of IBD, most experts agree on a basic framework that exlpains why people develop CD or UC. In essence, the cause of IBD lies in the complicated interactions that occur between the genes that IBD patients are BORN with, envrionmental factors and the ever-present challenge of bacteria that live in the intestinal tract.

DNA is organized into genes that encode all of the instructions required to build and maintain living organisms. Genes determine physical traits like eye and hair color etc. Genes also program the functions and activity of all cells in the body, cells of the immune system are under the control genes that determine the strength, effectiveness and appropriateness of an inflammatory response as well.

So actually IBD can be both hereditary and genetic, that's often the first piece of the puzzle with IBD, the second part of the big puzzle, is the environmental triggers....the disease still has to be triggered and this is where researchers are really stumped because they've already found defective genes for both CD and UC.

My mom got her UC AFTER I got my CD...I clearly got IBD from her, mine was triggered before hers...there's nothing black and white when it comes to IBD.

I wouldn't be surprised if there is a genetic factor in UC. My mom has been diagnosed with IBS, though apparently the two are not related. I have lots and lots of family throughout the US and Poland who I do not have any contact with so I have no idea if any of them have IBD. It would be nice to know.

Gary, Dr. Rioux discussed twins with IBD in the same paper...regardless of them growing up in different environments, based on the genetics and inheritance of IBD, it's been estimated that if one twin has CD, there is a 40-60% chance that the other twin will also have the disease.

Researchers aren't even sure what all possible triggers are, they suspect that it's more than likely it's a combination of triggers that set off the disease compared to just one environmental trigger though. They also suspect each patients combination of triggers is individual, which wouldn't surprise me considering how individual we are from one another.

Laurie, don't feel that way (about screwing over your children) like I mentioned, I got my IBD from my mom (she had UC, I have CD) but she didn't get sick until after I did...there's no guarantee how IBD is passed down (unlike cystic fibrosis where they know how it's passed down/inherited) IBD is a lot more complicated. I didn't get sick until my first child was almost a year and a half old, until then I had never heard of crohn's or UC. Once I got sick I asked my GI at the time if it was hereditary and he said they didn't have enough knowledge of the disease at that time to tell me one way or the other...and that even if it was, they weren't sure how/why and this was 23 years ago...and they still don't know enough about IBD in general IMO.

But don't beat yourself up in regards to your kids, I still had another child after getting sick with crohn's based on the fact I was told they didn't know if it was genetic/hereditary or not...I still took the risk and I still hope for the best for my kids....definitely had I become sick before having kids, I would have chose not to have them (as much as I love them and all). You can't drive yourself crazy worrying if your kids will inherit IBD from you....they don't have any understanding how IBD gets passed to family members, there are plenty of people that have more distant family members with it that get it as well, if we all had a crystal ball life would be great lol!

garylouisville said...
Sometimes people get confused with the terms "genetic" and "hereditary". If you inherit something then you will have it for sure, guaranteed. With IBD, and many other things, you can inherit a predisposition to coming down with something, such as IBD or cancer, to name a few. This doesn't mean that you will get if for sure, but that you inherited a genetic mutation that, when coupled with the right trigger or triggers, you will come down with whatever it was. Some people never come in contact with the right trigger or triggers and will therefore never come down with it, even though you inherited the genetic predisposition for it.

Gary puts it well here. Anyone saying it "can" be genetic based on their personal experience just does not understand genetics, or what it means to have a genetic predisposition.

Another point is that people get genetic mutations just from life itself. So, you could argue that a person did not inherit a predisposition to a disease, but a genetic mutation happened at some point during your life due to diet, pollution, xrays, etc..

Laurie: Please don't be down on yourself. It is my belief that every single human being alive has genetic mutations that could cause some sort of health issue.

Yes, it can be genetic. In my case, no one in my family had UC, but they do have IBS. Also had some elderly relatives sometime ago die of colon cancer. Good luck to both you and your father. I hope you can find some help or at least the community here on the board.

investigation has found that celiac disease and Crohn's disease, both inflammatory diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, share at least four genetic risk loci. Together, researchers from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands; the Broad Institute, USA; the Université de Montréal and Montreal Heart Institute in Canada performed a combined meta-analysis of genome-wide data for celiac disease and Crohn's disease. This meta-analysis, published in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics on January 27, has identified two new shared risk loci and two shared risk loci that had previously been independently identified for each disease.


Check out this link....

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110127205840.htm