Weekend Links: Cold Water Helps Crohn's?, Remicade + Immunomodulator Reduces Surgery/Hospitalization, Diet and IBD-No Link, Sleep and Crohn's Hand & Hand

Sea Swimming Helps Crohn's Patient 

I am across this interesting article that discusses how a man named Rob Starr. He has had the disease for 24 years and beginning in 2010 started swimming in very cold sea water. What is really interesting is that he woke up at 3 A.M. one morning in pain and then started to swim and was pain free after that. Sometimes with Crohn's you can have pain for periods and then they go away. Starr notes that swimming in warm water doesn't help. Six years ago he stopped all medications.

Remicade + Immunomodulator = Reduction in Surgeries and Hospitalizations By 50% 

This study was done with mostly older men and showed that when Remicade (infliximab) was mixed with an immunomodular it lead to fewer hospitalizations and surgeries. The study look at over 20,000 veterans with IBD over an 8 year period.   

Longer Delay in Diagnosis for Crohn's = More Likely To Require Surgery

This study looked at how long it took patients to receive a diagnosis for Crohn's disease. A 25-month delay in diagnosis resulted in being more likely to require intestinal surgery. The longer wait also resulted in a higher risk of patients having a bowel stenosis. 

Diet and IBD-No Link 

This  research shows that the data that "altering diet can change the natural history of IBD are scarce". The data is actually contradictory the author points out. The author of the paper Dr. Jason Hou of Baylor College of Medicine also has this interesting paper were he looked at nearly every study done on diet and Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis and found "high dietary intakes of total fats, PUFAs, omega 6 fatty acids, and meats were associated with an increased risk of Crohn's and ulcerative colitis. However high fiber and fruit intakes were associated with a decreased risk of Crohn's disease." Growing up I didn't eat too many fruits. However, I wonder if people who have the genes to get Crohn's just prefer to eat other things.

Sleep and Crohn's Go Hand and Hand
In this abstract Dr. Jami Kinnucan of the University of Chicago discussed the connection between sleep quality and the quality of life with people with IBD. However, Dr. Stephen Hanauer correctly pointed out that this is trying to figure out what causes what. Does lack of sleep affect sleep or does having a flare up cause an impact on sleep. I personally believe that more sleep does make you feel better if you have Crohn's from personal experience. In fact my first solid bowel movement in many months was the night after I got 9 hours of sleep (I felt quite amazing that day too).