This article from the August issue of The American Journal of Gastroenterology shows that a heat wave increased IBD flares by about 5%. This is interesting because I live in both a hot and humid state. What would be interesting is it there was a worldwide study looking at patients from various countries all over the world and looking to see if warmer temperatures in general caused flares. I know someone who is dating a guy who has Crohn's for a long period of time and his metric is every 4th of July he knows he will feel bad. Maybe there is some truth to this study.
Kenneth Rainin Foundation Awards $1.5 million For IBD Research
The Kenneth Rainin Foundation which is a non-profit created by Kenneth Ranin who was an entrepreneur founded an instrument company and created a foundation to support the arts, sciences, and health research. The foundation actually established an IBD center at UCSF. Ranin has a daughter (Jennifer) that was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis (she also has a Ph.D). The $1.5 million will be used to invest in research that can help understand causes and cures for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
Distinct Microbiome in Crohn's Intestinal Mucosa
Researchers examined Crohn's patients who were undergoing surgery for either Crohn's or for reasons other than inflammatory bowel disease. What is interesting is that patients with diseased Crohn's tissues had more than several hundreds times the amount of bacteria compared to patients with normal tissue. What this really would say is that there are different subtypes of Crohn's disease. Hopefully this research will result in more targeted therapies in the future.
Implantable Biologic For Crohn's Disease?
A California company called SetPoint Medical has developed a very small device that can be implanted and somehow mediate the immune system to reduce inflammation for people with both rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn's disease. Below is a picture
