Causes of Crohns any guess

[ravii_39]

Hi all,

As everyone aware no doctor has an idea about Crohn’s disease causes but as from my experience I am sharing my thoughts. I usually don’t drink milk and also in India we drink buffalo milk. Here people don’t give steroids to buffalos to get more milk like in western countries(please don’t take me wrong). I moved to USA in 2013 and in 2016 due to my job rush hours I took corn flakes with milk for three months and one day we had a barbecue with chicken and hot sausage that’s where I started to have diarrhea, weight loss, cough, chills etc. So finally I was diagnosed with Crohns in 2016. So here I suspect either cow milk or spices like hot sauce caused me to have this disease. Other than that I don’t see any other cause in my case.

initially I used to think because of meat consumption inflammation came but I also found out pure vegetarians also getting this disease so meat is not the culprit here.

Things may change from person to person. Please share your experience and thoughts.
Thanks in advance

 

[Jo-mom]

Good day, my son has never consumed cow's milk and he has never eaten meat - we have no family history, but he has crohn's. Food does not cause crohn's. In fact, it is still not know what causes crohn's.

 

[D Bergy]

I believe it starts with a dysfunctional immune system. What causes the dysfunction I do not yet know. Since what causes the immune system problem is unknown to me, I guess whatever it is would be the root cause of the disease. It could be more than one thing.

Dan

 

[kiny]

There have been studies like this in the past which I have linked.

But a recent study has confirmed, again, that antibodies against E coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae can predict who will develop crohn's disease with very high accuracy 5 years in advance. (these tests (anti-OMPC and ASCA) do not work for UC at all, UC has nothing to do with crohn's)

Serum Biomarkers Identify Patients Who Will Develop Inflammatory Bowel Diseases Up to 5 y Before Diagnosis.

Here is another such study.

Serological markers predict inflammatory bowel disease years before the diagnosis.

We can predict who will develop crohn's disease by identifying antibodies against E Coli.

Crohn's is caused by pathogens (such as E Coli, AIEC) chronically invading intestinal tissue, exacerbated by the fecal stream. An inadequate primary immune response of macrophages fails to clear those pathogens, which results in chronic inflammation.

Any diet that helps has a high bioavailability and low residue, which subsequently lowers the fecal stream. EN consists of a specific maltodextrin with a high DE that is comparable to dextrose, small intestinal uptake happens before most of the content reaches the ileum. This lowers bacterial load and lowers bacterial entry into intestinal tissue.

 

[kiny]

The question as to what the actual initial trigger is, is a different question I feel. But it's an academic question, it doesn't matter to a patient or impacts treatment.

Those people with antibodies against E Coli and Saccharomyces are far more likely to develop crohn. But why don't hey have crohn's yet at that point, there is a high potential they get sick, but what is the actual trigger that causes the acute disease. They can have no symptoms for years even though they carry all the pathogens and all the serum diagnostic tools like anti-OMPC and ASCA are positive. What tips the scale, how do they go from high disease potential to actual disease.

One suggestion has been a foodborne infection (salmonella, campylobacter, etc), these infections are extremely common in the West. This infection is cleared but it leaves a permeable intestine behind that allows E Coli and Saccharomyces chronic entry into the intestine.

For patients it doesn't really matter what the initial trigger was, by the time people are diagnosed with the disease that foodborne infection has long been cleared and won't show up anymore in tests. What does matter is the chronic immune response against E Coli, Saccharomyces, and other pathogens from the fecal stream that are entering tissue.

 

[kiny]

Just to reiterate that Crohn's is extremely different from UC. It is a real shame the umbrella term IBD exists, a term you won't see me use because of this reason.

Those ASCA antibodies I mentioned are specific to crohn's you can not find them in UC patients. You can not diagnose, predict, or find the cause of UC by looking at crohn's disease antibodies.

There is no sort of overlap between UC and crohn's. They are completely different diseases.

ASCA antibodies are specific to crohn's disease, you can not find them in UC patients. anti-CBir (response to flagellin of E Coli) is found in crohn's disease, you can not find them in UC patient. AIEC (E coli) is found in crohn's disease, you can not find them in UC patients. Granuloma response to intracellular bacteria are specific to crohn's disease, you can not find them in UC patients. Autophagy defficiencies (ATG16L1) that allow those bacteria to circumvent clearance by macrophages is crohn's disease specific, you can not find them in UC patients.

 

[ravii_39]

The reason why I asked is one of my friend’s mom came to USA and she became sick and got Crohns during her short visit. She never had any symptoms before and she was so healthy. Moreover she is 60+ age. There should be some food which triggered Crohn’s disease. Even In my early diagnosis my doctor suspected it could be TB because Crohns is very less in Asian people but unfortunately it came out as Crohn’s. I am just trying to figure out the cause. Thank you all..

 

[ravii_39]

There have been studies like this in the past which I have linked.

But a recent study has confirmed, again, that antibodies against E coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae can predict who will develop crohn's disease with very high accuracy 5 years in advance. (these tests (anti-OMPC and ASCA) do not work for UC at all, UC has nothing to do with crohn's)

Serum Biomarkers Identify Patients Who Will Develop Inflammatory Bowel Diseases Up to 5 y Before Diagnosis.

Here is another such study.

Serological markers predict inflammatory bowel disease years before the diagnosis.

We can predict who will develop crohn's disease by identifying antibodies against E Coli.

Crohn's is caused by pathogens (such as E Coli, AIEC) chronically invading intestinal tissue, exacerbated by the fecal stream. An inadequate primary immune response of macrophages fails to clear those pathogens, which results in chronic inflammation.

Any diet that helps has a high bioavailability and low residue, which subsequently lowers the fecal stream. EN consists of a specific maltodextrin with a high DE that is comparable to dextrose, small intestinal uptake happens before most of the content reaches the ileum. This lowers bacterial load and lowers bacterial entry into intestinal tissue.

Hi Kiny,

thanks for your response useful data. Good to know that we can detect crohns ahead.

 

[Phil in Europe]

As already mentioned in this thread, I believe it is just simply a malfunction of the immune system. I developed the symptoms of Crohns at the same time I started having issues with Allergic Rhinitis. I also developed eczema on my thigh at the same time. This essentially started in Iraq BUT I don't believe it's tied to that because my allergies started to become present right beforehand (I just settled into Texas before deployment). I think our bodies just flip out when there's some form of allergen it doesn't like.

 

[Kaviravani]

I agree with you. I was a very healthy female til, 40. No IBS, diarrhea, constipation ever in my life. Suddenly in December 2018 i had severe bloating after eating outside. Initially GP gave me pravacid thinking its acid indigestion. It didn’t help. Endoscopy last year showed nothing. Colonoscopy June 2019 and Aug2019 showed ulcers in terminal ileum but no crohns in biopsy. Wasn’t given any medication . But kept loosing weight and horrible gas and bloating. I switched to another GI. They did endoscopy which shows some early IBD changes. Colonoscopy march, 2020 showed normal terminal ileum but biopsy now shows chronic active ileitis. Capsule endoscopy showed many ulcers in small intestine. I am feeling so devastated and still unable to accept the fact that a healthy person with no symptoms ever is sick with an incurable disease like crohns. Totally depressed. I look at my husband and kids and feel so sorry for them that i will never be that happy, healthy mother and wife that I used to be. They haven’t done anything wrong to deserve this.

 

[Phil in Europe]

The funny thing with me is that I'm not losing weight (unfortunately). With the amount of steroids I've been prescribed for the sinus and skin issues, I've actually gained weight over the past 6 years. Not in a good way.

 

[FromTheSkyDown]

Just to reiterate that Crohn's is extremely different from UC. It is a real shame the umbrella term IBD exists, a term you won't see me use because of this reason.

Those ASCA antibodies I mentioned are specific to crohn's you can not find them in UC patients. You can not diagnose, predict, or find the cause of UC by looking at crohn's disease antibodies.

There is no sort of overlap between UC and crohn's. They are completely different diseases.

ASCA antibodies are specific to crohn's disease, you can not find them in UC patients. anti-CBir (response to flagellin of E Coli) is found in crohn's disease, you can not find them in UC patient. AIEC (E coli) is found in crohn's disease, you can not find them in UC patients. Granuloma response to intracellular bacteria are specific to crohn's disease, you can not find them in UC patients. Autophagy defficiencies (ATG16L1) that allow those bacteria to circumvent clearance by macrophages is crohn's disease specific, you can not find them in UC patients.

My prognosis, after severe illness, hospitalisation and several incursions into my colon was that of Crohn's Colitis. I take Azathioprene and Pentasa, initially coming out of hospital on Prednisolone as well, which was tapered out over a six week period. I actually cannot grasp the concept of people being advised to eat five lots of fruit and five lots of veg per day, as the amount of fibre must be way too much for the guts too handle.

 

[Newlero]

I agree with you. I was a very healthy female til, 40. No IBS, diarrhea, constipation ever in my life. Suddenly in December 2018 i had severe bloating after eating outside. Initially GP gave me pravacid thinking its acid indigestion. It didn’t help. Endoscopy last year showed nothing. Colonoscopy June 2019 and Aug2019 showed ulcers in terminal ileum but no crohns in biopsy. Wasn’t given any medication . But kept loosing weight and horrible gas and bloating. I switched to another GI. They did endoscopy which shows some early IBD changes. Colonoscopy march, 2020 showed normal terminal ileum but biopsy now shows chronic active ileitis. Capsule endoscopy showed many ulcers in small intestine. I am feeling so devastated and still unable to accept the fact that a healthy person with no symptoms ever is sick with an incurable disease like crohns. Totally depressed. I look at my husband and kids and feel so sorry for them that i will never be that happy, healthy mother and wife that I used to be. They haven’t done anything wrong to deserve this.

Thats weird you had clean endoscopy in 2018 then its changed in 2019
Causes of your Crohns any guess? Did you have too much stress in your life ?

 

[wild_one353]

lots of causes, like, low fiber diet, food additives, high fat diet, high sugar diet, antibiotics, red meat low vitamin d, advancing age. All of this alone or in combination disrupts the balance of good bacteria in the intestines which regulate the immune system/inflammation, the field of study is called microbiome science.

Right now therapies are being developed to restore the missing bacteria and treat or cure many diseases like ibd/crohns, it's called a fecal transplant. Please follow my link below this to learn more!!

 

[Amandakmk]

In 2006 I had had pancreatitis that almost killed me , I did not drink or do anything that is the usual cause of pancreatitis however I was under a lot of stress. After that I always had digestive problems (horrible diarrhea cramping pain) but I got so used to it and whenever those issues would arise to full force I would go on my slim fast diet (liquid only low fat) and I would do fine . Now fast forward to 2019 and I had horrible pain in the matter of two hours and was admitted to the hospital where they told me I had an obstruction and they did ct scans and mris and said I had a 15 cm spot I was septic, and tons of inflammation that still had not gone down two months after I was on prednisone. In January 2020 I was diagnosed with crohns. Now I don’t drink milk and only certain red meats bother me however raw onions leave me miserable . I have no family history of crohns either .

 

[kiny]

I actually cannot grasp the concept of people being advised to eat five lots of fruit and five lots of veg per day, as the amount of fibre must be way too much for the guts too handle.

If you asked a dietician about a healthy diet, they would tell you to eat lots of fruits, vegetables and fibers.

But fructose malabsorption is incredibly common in crohn's disease patients. Elemental Nutrition leading to mucosal healing in crohn's disease patients, removes all the fructose and fiber.

Fructose is not easily digested, it lingers in the small intestine, converting fructose to glucose can take 6 to 8 hours. Fruit is in general not something that is easy to digest, especially not for people with fructose intolerance, over 60% of people with crohn's disease suffer from fructose intolerance and malabsorption.

A fruit juice might look easy to absorb, but the body does not seem to be well equipped to absorb fructose at all. It is incompletely absorbed, bacteria will end up fermenting it, it is thought to be the cause of bacterial overgrowth in people with malabsorption and it doesn't offer any upsides.

The absorption of fructose is also not helped with the addition of glucose, fructose absorption remains poor, glucose has no effect on fructose bioavailability. The defense of fructose in fruit is that people can more easily digest it due to the presence of glucose, but study after study shows fructose absorption is not enhanced by the presence of glucose, yet this keeps getting repeated by dieticians. People with fructose malabsorption shouldn't be eating fruit, there are plenty of ways to get your vitamins in other ways. Yet dieticians keep recommending people eat lots of fruit, for reasons unknown to me.

Another defense of fructose in fruit is that fruit doesn't contain as much fructose as other products. But studies show that the simple ingestion of fructose is enough for people with fructose malabsorption to show symptoms of malabsorption, regardless of the concentration of fructose. Fructose in fruit is also not particularly low.

The incidence of children developing crohn's disease is going up, despite so many schools adopting 'dietary guidelines' based on fruit and fibers. Children are being told that things they can't easily absorb are good for them.

It took decades before the dairy industry finally admitted that some people were lactose intolerant. It took decades before schools stopped serving every child milk.

It will take another few decades before the farming industry will admit almost half the Western population is fructose intolerant and can't easily digest fruit. Just because something grows on a tree doesn't mean it is good for you, a lot things that can kill you grow on trees too.

 

[Lady Organic]

In my opinion:
Specific genetics(genes) + a combination a variables often associated with Western culture and way of living (and same for most inflammatory chronic illnesses and cancers) such as :
-lack of Vitamin D (sun)
-lack of physical activity (sedentarity)
-high level of stress and cognitive chronic fatigue or overload (performance anxiety related to work, finance, education, etc.)
-lack of spirituality to manage difficult emotions and stress
-very poor diet ( lack of vegetals, overload of hyper-transformed foods and fibre lacking foods, lack of fresh foods (preservatives-freezer-refrigerator))
-high consumption of pesticides in foods and other unproper chemicals absorbed and filtered by the body (ex: beauty products)
-very high consumption of animal milk or milk-derived products throughout childhood and adulthood.
-very cold weather (stress to the body, bones and muscles) as opposed to warm weather which is relaxing
-disturbance of gut flora with antibiotic therapy throughout a child and person's life.
-disturbance of hormonal cycles with contraceptive pill

I believe that the more of these variables one person incorporates in his/her life, the higher the risk of ''irritating'' and triggering those bad genes related to the most common inflammatory chronic illnesses and cancers (prostate, colon, breast, etc.)

 

[ahm]

In my opinion:
Specific genetics(genes) + a combination a variables often associated with Western culture and way of living (and same for most inflammatory chronic illnesses and cancers) such as :
-lack of Vitamin D (sun)
-lack of physical activity (sedentarity)
-high level of stress and cognitive chronic fatigue or overload (performance anxiety related to work, finance, education, etc.)
-lack of spirituality to manage difficult emotions and stress
-very poor diet ( lack of vegetals, overload of hyper-transformed foods and fibre lacking foods, lack of fresh foods (preservatives-freezer-refrigerator))
-high consumption of pesticides in foods and other unproper chemicals absorbed and filtered by the body (ex: beauty products)
-very high consumption of animal milk or milk-derived products throughout childhood and adulthood.
-very cold weather (stress to the body, bones and muscles) as opposed to warm weather which is relaxing
-disturbance of gut flora with antibiotic therapy throughout a child and person's life.
-disturbance of hormonal cycles with contraceptive pill

I believe that the more of these variables one person incorporates in his/her life, the higher the risk of ''irritating'' and triggering those bad genes related to the most common inflammatory chronic illnesses and cancers (prostate, colon, breast, etc.)

I have crohn's for 12 years now, while living in saudi arabia with temperature reaching 50 C in the summer and mere 10 C in winter

 

[lukesjr]

what is interesting is, we don't know actually how many people get crohns. Maybe some people get it and it goes away? Maybe some people have it their whole life with no symptoms? Maybe some people get it but eat or do something that cures it? It is interesting to discuss causes from an academic discussion point of view, but the absence of data of a cross section of the population will likely make the ability to determine the cause impossible. But, the good thing is they may not need the cause to find the cure.

Right now, we are really only evaluating people that get it such that it exhibits symptoms.

 

[afidz]

In my case, I was subjected to childhood emotional abuse. Right around the time that my mom was at her worst was when I started getting sick. I’m reading a book now about PTSD and how the body stores trauma, it’s been really eye opening.
I went into remission in 2009 and up until recently I stayed in remission. It would have been 11 years in October. I recently confronted my mom and started remembering a lot of what I had blocked out and to no surprise started getting sick again shortly after.
I believe that there are a lot of different causes of autoimmunity and it’s definitely different for everyone

 

[Jim (POPS)]

In my case, I was subjected to childhood emotional abuse. Right around the time that my mom was at her worst was when I started getting sick. I’m reading a book now about PTSD and how the body stores trauma, it’s been really eye opening.
I went into remission in 2009 and up until recently I stayed in remission. It would have been 11 years in October. I recently confronted my mom and started remembering a lot of what I had blocked out and to no surprise started getting sick again shortly after.
I believe that there are a lot of different causes of autoimmunity and it’s definitely different for everyone

I believe that PTSD can be a cause. My symptoms started the last year of my Army years in 1972. It all started right after I came back from Vietnam and had 10 months left in the Army. I was under a lot of stress but back the the VA knew nothing about PTSD. They would say " get yourself together".
When I got out of the Army all the symptoms went away till I was 45 years old. And then it was just minor diarrhea for 15 year, they said, it's IBS. Then they wanted to remove my appendix and found Crohn's. " BIG TIME" They did a bowl re section on the spot. I've had problems ever since. When I was 45 I took a high stress level job being in charge of ALL Of California for Nationwide Insurance co. When they found the Crohn's I had just had my job elemanated. More stress. So that's my belief.
Jim. (POPS)

 

[afidz]

I believe that PTSD can be a cause. My symptoms started the last year of my Army years in 1972. It all started right after I came back from Vietnam and had 10 months left in the Army. I was under a lot of stress but back the the VA knew nothing about PTSD. They would say " get yourself together".
When I got out of the Army all the symptoms went away till I was 45 years old. And then it was just minor diarrhea for 15 year, they said, it's IBS. Then they wanted to remove my appendix and found Crohn's. " BIG TIME" They did a bowl re section on the spot. I've had problems ever since. When I was 45 I took a high stress level job being in charge of ALL Of California for Nationwide Insurance co. When they found the Crohn's I had just had my job elemanated. More stress. So that's my belief.
Jim. (POPS)

My Crohn’s affected my appendix too! Except it wasn’t bad yet. When I came out of surgery, they said “your colon was inflamed from your appendix”. A few months later I was sicker than I was before and got a colonoscopy and they found Crohn’s. So really it was Crohn’s affecting my appendix

 

[junae 11]

Hi all,

As everyone aware no doctor has an idea about Crohn’s disease causes but as from my experience I am sharing my thoughts. I usually don’t drink milk and also in India we drink buffalo milk. Here people don’t give steroids to buffalos to get more milk like in western countries(please don’t take me wrong). I moved to USA in 2013 and in 2016 due to my job rush hours I took corn flakes with milk for three months and one day we had a barbecue with chicken and hot sausage that’s where I started to have diarrhea, weight loss, cough, chills etc. So finally I was diagnosed with Crohns in 2016. So here I suspect either cow milk or spices like hot sauce caused me to have this disease. Other than that I don’t see any other cause in my case.

initially I used to think because of meat consumption inflammation came but I also found out pure vegetarians also getting this disease so meat is not the culprit here.

Things may change from person to person. Please share your experience and thoughts.
Thanks in advance

True nobody truly knows how crohns begins, but, in 1992 ,my wife and I talked for hours about just what could be a cause and the only thing that we "talked down" narrowing causes [ deduce] I have believed for long time that certain GASES from our foods cause the start of the irritaion in the intestines......Plus some crohns people I talk with have one thing in common they all held in the "BM" movments" until they got home, I also think this to is a cuase that really irritates the intestines

Hi all,

As everyone aware no doctor has an idea about Crohn’s disease causes but as from my experience I am sharing my thoughts. I usually don’t drink milk and also in India we drink buffalo milk. Here people don’t give steroids to buffalos to get more milk like in western countries(please don’t take me wrong). I moved to USA in 2013 and in 2016 due to my job rush hours I took corn flakes with milk for three months and one day we had a barbecue with chicken and hot sausage that’s where I started to have diarrhea, weight loss, cough, chills etc. So finally I was diagnosed with Crohns in 2016. So here I suspect either cow milk or spices like hot sauce caused me to have this disease. Other than that I don’t see any other cause in my case.

initially I used to think because of meat consumption inflammation came but I also found out pure vegetarians also getting this disease so meat is not the culprit here.

Things may change from person to person. Please share your experience and thoughts.
Thanks in advance

I THINK everyone is RIGHT with there Answers, this is what we know and can only ASSUME are triggers, thats what weve been told by the "Experts"... What if the intestine get irritate by anything ,just a little irrated by gases, foods, spices, STRESS ect... and which the brain and body REPSPONSE to that as and attack on the body, so the brain sends the siunal the COAT the intestinal wall with its "LIFESAVING" mucus and thus BEGINS the years of crohns cycle.. Just throwing this out.. Im saying what if any disturbace causes the brian to react and start the process..

 

[deanhp]

diet plays a huge role. Ancel Keys is probably credited with killing the most americans in history.

 

[junae 11]

Good day, my son has never consumed cow's milk and he has never eaten meat - we have no family history, but he has crohn's. Food does not cause crohn's. In fact, it is still not know what causes crohn's.

This could narrow things down , all foods meat or not causes gases in the intestine[[[[so maybe the gas causes the brain to think it is under attack and reacts to protect the intestines [[Just maybe]]]

 

[stickman7755]

Combo of genetics and environment. It is more prevelant in northern parts of countries(less sunlight) in europe. My family is from Ireland(lots of clouds). Which results in vit def.

Change in diet i believe may cause people to notice flareups they didnt know they had, which leads to dx

Stress also causes flareups in my opinion

 

[deanhp]

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