Yesterday I committed the cardinal sin of eating a cup of rice cereal. Today I paid the price as a little river of blood flowed out. The color was actually kind of pretty, in a glimmering, decadent ruby-esque sort of way. Ah, the wonders of IBD.
It always has amazed me how my immune system has adapted to be more vitriolic towards carbohydrates. After all, if it can adapt that way, why can it not adapt the other way and become more tolerant towards these foods? I guess that's what a remission is. Unless of course remission is caused by some environmental variable that has changed. Or some epigenetic change due to .... who knows. My head's spinning.
I also wonder why Canada is the epicenter of Crohn's and (I think) #2 hotspot for Ulcerative Colitis.. in the world. The US North is close behind. Now why is the U.S. South catching up to the U.S. North in Crohn's cases? Why is it that adolescent IBD cases have jumped in the last 15 years? And another point: people of South Asian descent who live in Canada are seeing a much higher incidence of IBD than when they lived in their original countries. It is so easy to assume food is the culprit though it could be anything in our environment. Celine Dion moved from Canada to the US South (to perform in Las Vegas shows) in recent years and the incidence of IBD seems to be following that pattern. I wonder if there's a link.
Another thing I find interesting about all this is that many diseases that will kill you in the long term actually benefit you in the short term. Eg hemochromatosis (where there's an excess of iron in the body) reduces the amount of iron available to iron-loving bacteria, such as the bubonic plague. Another example, in cold climates, eg the far north, diabetes may have been helpful as it raises your blood sugar which keeps you from freezing in extreme cold. (Not so helpful when you eat a western diet of course). What in the world could the benefit of an auto-immune disorder be?
The only thing I can think of is that the immune system is primed and ready to tackle pathogens and illness... and a little bit of autoimmune disease is probably a good thing as the body can more quickly find and eradicate malignancies. Whatever. After 3 years of trying to cure my self and understand this stuff I am no further along than before. There is only one thing I do know. The worse the disease gets, the worse it will get. Stop flares before they become worse.
Some researchers have looked into a link with the disease called Johne's disease, possibly because it rhymes with Crohn's disease. Johne's disease is a severe and fatal bacterial infection that strikes cattle, sheep, and other livestock. MAP (Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis) has long been identified as the cause of Johne's disease. Despite efforts to limit the spread of MAP, roughly 68% of cattle herds in this country are infected, meaning one or more animals in the herd carry the bacterium and may develop Johne's disease or spread the infection to other animals. MAP has been found in some dairy products—milk and cheese—and beef on supermarket shelves.
ReplyDeleteAnother theory that strikes me is that our cold climate necessitates the use of preserved foods to get us through the winter. And there's a slippery slope when it comes to accepting food preservation for the winter and then accepting frozen TV dinners and ultimately accepting fast food. But it still doesn't explain why some people get away with their McDiets and others can't. So obviously there must be a genetic component at work too. And then we are back to square one. I have no idea about where this disease comes from.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I am starting to believe is that IBD and autoimmune diseases in general, are very personalized illnesses where the cellular level interactions that manifest in disease differ amongst individuals. That's why some drugs work for some and not for others. And some diets work for some and not others.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it cool how I can use comments to break up the content and make the body of the blog entry not look so tedious to read? Cool trick. Reminds me of how I used to cheat on my term papers at school by playing with font sizes, margins, etc.
ReplyDeleteOh, did I mention that dogs, cats, and of course mice can get IBD? Now this would be interesting to me: A study correlating where, geographically, household pets are more likely to get IBD. Cross that data with the human geo data and find out that it really was Celine Dion who caused all this.
ReplyDelete"Oh, did I mention that dogs, cats, and of course mice can get IBD?"
ReplyDeleteSo can ferrets. I have four of them, and I was surprised to read that fact when I was researching my disease a couple years back. I'd be very curious about the geographical info of pets with IBD's.