Research Roundup: What Causes Crohn's Disease? - BioSpace

Every week there are numerous scientific studies published. Here’s a look at some of the more interesting ones.

New Insights into the Causes of Crohn’s Disease

Crohn’s disease is an inflammatory bowel disease that causes inflammation of the digestive tract, leading to abdominal pain, severe diarrhea, fatigue, weight loss and malnutrition. The treatments tend to be powerful anti-inflammatories, such as Humira, or in severe cases, surgical removal of the part of the bowel that is affected. There appear to be a number of causes, but one indicator is an abnormal reaction of the immune system to some of the intestinal bacteria.

Researchers at the University of Plymouth in the UK have identified specific types of immune cells, macrophages, and specific types of macrophages that affect the inflammatory destruction of the gut. One type is pro-inflammatory, and the other type is anti-inflammatory, and they have very distinct molecular mechanisms that behave differently in the presence of bacteria.

“This small step in understanding of differential off-signaling of macrophage type may go hand-in-hand with understanding the relapsing/remitting presentation of Crohn’s disease,” stated Andrew Foey, study author. “It is suggestive of future research endeavors in targeting macrophage responses in the treatment of inflammatory diseases—and it’s a really positive step.”

• Gut Bacteria Can Eat the Medications You're Taking

The microbiome is the trillions of bacteria and other microorganisms that inhabit our bodies. Increasingly, these microbes are found to play a complex role in numerous diseases, not just gastrointestinal diseases. It was recently found that microbes degrade medications. The research focuses on levodopa, the gold standard for treatment of Parkinson’s disease. In their study, the researchers found that gut microbes degrade levodopa and play a major role in how the drug works or stops working well enough.

• Poor Oral Health Linked to 75% Higher Liver Cancer Risk

In a study of more than 469,000 people in the UK, researchers were looking for an association between oral health and the risk of gastrointestinal cancers, including liver, colon, rectum and pancreatic. No major risk was observed in most GI cancers, but a significant link was found for hepatobiliary cancer. The link isn’t clear, although one theory is that people with a high number of missing teeth may alter their diet. There is also an increase in the bacteria Fusobacterium nucleatum in the oral cavity, but whether it relates to liver cancer is unknown.

• Antioxidant SOD1 Fights Alzheimer’s, but Eventually Loses to Tau

Although there are many theories of Alzheimer’s, there is definitely some sort of link to the accumulation of the proteins amyloid and tau. Amyloid typically occurs early in the disease and tau later in the disease. Researchers have found that an antioxidant called SOD1, which is known to improve cognition in the brain by battling free radicals, seems to do a pretty good job of fighting tau proteins for a while, but eventually lose the battle. In the study, SOD1 appears to help in 90% of patients with mild cognitive impairment, but once tau emerges, it loses its effectiveness.

• Facebook Might Be Useful After All

A recent study published in PLOS ONE describes how an analysis of the language used in Facebook posts might help identify diseases like diabetes, anxiety, depression and psychosis. The researchers also propose that, with patient consent, it might potentially be monitored just like physical symptoms. The scientists used an automated data collection technique and analyzed the complete Facebook post history of almost 1,000 patients who agreed to link their electronic medical records to their profiles.

• Preventing the Immune System from Switching Off

Sometimes, when the immune system is particularly challenged, for instance with certain cancers and viral infections, the immune system switches to a lower function. Researchers have identified what that particular molecular switch is. It is called “Tox,” and the scientists found that it activates a genetic program that changes immune cell function. This opens significant opportunities for therapies that might control Tox, allowing for reactivation of weak immune responses.

• Yogurt May Decrease Risk of Pre-Cancerous Bowel Lesions

Adenomas are abnormal growths that precede the development of bowel cancer. Researchers found that eating two or more servings of yogurt per week might decrease the risk of developing adenoma, at least in men. Previous research has suggested that eating a lot of yogurt could potentially decrease the risk of bowel cancer because it changes the type and volume of bacteria in the gut, otherwise known as the microbiome. In the study of 32,606 men and 55,734 women, men who ate two or more servings of yogurt a week were 19% less likely to develop conventional adenomas and 26% less likely to develop precancerous adenomas. However, there was no associated difference in the women’s study. The data for men was taken from the Health Professionals Follow Up Study and the women from the Nurses Health Study.

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