Weekend Links: Diet Helps Crohn's Woman, Fecal Transplant Helps Crohn's Patient With Fistula, Jog May Keep Crohn's At Bay, Possible Cure For Crohn's?

Diet Helps Woman With Crohn's
So here is a story about a diet that helped a Crohn's patient. Tara Rosas was having issues with Crohn's and when she was told she would need surgery she tried changing her diet and actually is now in remission. She eliminated all grains, potatoes, and certain sugars and began eating spinanch, celery, carrots, apples, and lemons. After 7 months she was symptom free (I would love to see a colonoscopy before and after and was able to stop all types of medications. She has been in remission for 3 years. It can be tricky because sometimes people can go into remission for years and maybe not even me on medication and be fine.

Fecal Transplant Helps Crohn's Patient With Fistula 
Here is a case study that showed how a fecal transplant helped someone with refractory Crohn's disease (patient had a fistula).  The patient was a 32 year old Chinese man who had Crohn's disease. A CT scan in the patient showed an abdominal mass. A fecal transplant was performed (mid-gut) and a week after the fecal transplant the patient no longer had a fever, bloody stool, or abdominal pain, and his mass became smaller. His CDAI score decreased from 537 to 228. After three months his CDAI score dropped to 62 (remission).

Jog A Day May Keep Crohn's At Bay
So this recent study looked at women (194,000) over a long period of time (between 1984-2010). The studies conclusion is that "physical activity was inversely associated with risk of Crohn's disease but not ulcerative colitis". This is interesting because I partly have a theory that my insane workout routine pre-Crohn's may have lowered my immune system and possibly lead to met getting Crohn's disease. What studies like this fail to do is look at what caused what. Exercise in some people may increase or decrease risk of Crohn's (it depends on the person since everyone is different). The next study that should be done should try to answer the why.

Possible Crohn's Cure? Anti-MAP
So I probably have discussed this before on this blog but Dr. Naser at University of Central Florida is doing some interesting work in trying to possibly develop a cure for Crohn's. Naser has been at UCF since 1995 and been studying Crohn's for about 18 years. There will be no doubt that the upcoming clinical trial he has started will see once and for all whether or not MAP causes Crohn's disease (I hope it does because if so it could be a large breakthrough for Crohn's patients). Redhill Biopharma is already conducting Phase III clinical trials. Results probably won't be expected for 2-3 years (although if patients really were cured they would most likely suspend the trial and allow patients who suffer to take the medication).