Is Crohn's disease hereditary

[Kennedy]

Ok so my boyfriend has Crohn's and we recently found out I was pregnant. So I was wondering is there like more of a chance that the baby will have Crohn's. is Crohn's hereditary ?? Just worried because I have seen what he goes through and it's scary
Any information will be very helpful thank y"all so much

 

[Kaitlyn]

I know children of parents with Crohn's are much more likely to get it meaning they have a greater chance doesn't mean they will get just means they have a higher chance then other kids. Also may I suggest searching on here there might be some helpful post about it
Good luck and congrats

 

[jlm]

Its not guaranteed that your child will have Crohns disease but there is a higher possibility they could. There is loads of research that suggesrs it is hereditary. My mother has crohns disease and so do I. Different forms of IBD run on both sides of my family.

 

[SarahBear]

There is a genetic component, but it appears that there are many other, unknown factors involved as well. Does anyone else in his family have Crohn's?

Congratulations on your pregnancy!

 

[PsychoJane]

As previously said, there seem to be higher chances for your child to have crohn than if one of the parent has it. The percentage is roughly 20% chance. My mother apparently had no one in her family that was diagnosed with crohn, here again... not everyone has severe disease and people could live without a diagnosis decades ago so maybe was there someone who had digestive issues somewhere in the family. Anyway, she has crohns, so have I but my bro's fine.

 

[alex_chris]

I have got Crohn's and my cousin got Crohn's. My three brothers and two sisters, parents, grand parents, 7 other cousins, 5 nieces and nephews, 4 auns and uncles etc. all don't have Crohn's.

About 1.4 million Amercans have IBD, that's 1 in 200.

Here are two paragraphs on stats:


Outside of a parent or sibling having Crohn’s disease, or if you are a smoker, there are no clearly definable risk factors for getting Crohn’s disease, says Charles O. Elson, III, MD, vice-chair for research in the department of medicine and the Basil I. Hirschowitz Chair in Gastroenterology at the University of Alabama-Birmingham. If a relative has Crohn’s disease, your risk is 10 times that of the general population. If this relative is a sibling, your risk then becomes 30 times that of the general population.

“With identical twins, the likelihood of the other twin developing Crohn’s is around 50 percent,” says Josh Korzenik, MD, co-director of the Crohn's and Colitis Center at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Because only half of identical twins will eventually develop Crohn’s, even though they share the same genes as their sibling who has the disease, it’s clear that there are other risk factors at work.

Having said that, if your husband has Crohn's the chance of your kid getting it is increased fom 1 in 200 to 1 in 20. That's of course is all statistics... Who knows what really happens? Someone could say you got a 95% chance of getting something and you don't. Meanwhile with a 0.5% chance you could still get it.

 

[afidz]

Like everyone else stated, there is a chance your child can develop it. Best advice is don't worry until you have to worry. You can't stop it from happening if its going to happen. Make yourself aware of the signs and symptoms of it so you know what to look for.

 

[Sailorluna]

might be a good poll question though.

 

[kiny]

Everyone already explained it.

I like:

"Genetic predisposition"

Genetics might predispose you to the disease, but it's not necessary, and you need an environmental trigger. A trigger which to this day is still unknown, even though there's a few candidates and hypotheses.

Evidence that genetics are just a small part of the equation, is:

-looking at twins like someone mentioned

-the fact NOD2 gene mutations and others are not present in a large portion of people with crohn's disease (NOD2 mutations are completely absent in Asian people with crohn's disease surprisingly)

-the fact that most people with those mutations do not get crohn's disease

-and the fact the disease is spreading much faster than only genetics can explain

Genetics are part of the puzzle, but there are a lot more missing pieces. The genetics piece of the puzzle was just easiest to find.

 

[Amy2]

A biologist friend of my husband's said he thinks the rise may related to the fact that we no longer have to fight parasites in our bodies, so our bodies turn on themselves. Up until about 50 years ago, people had worms etc. *shudder*

Neither my husband or myself have Crohn's and we have 2 children with the Crohn's.

 

[kiny]

A biologist friend of my husband's said he thinks the rise may related to the fact that we no longer have to fight parasites in our bodies

That's the hygiene hypothesis. But since kids now get crohn's disease very early in life, and since immigrants from rural India / Africa / China seem to be getting crohn's disease just as much as locals, this doesn't make very much sense to me. It also points to unbalances in Th cells, but those unbalances are also seen in infections and during inflammation, it doesn't mean it's related to hygiene.

It also tried to explain why crohn's disease rates were slightly higher in more privileged families and urban areas, since people assumed that demographic came into contact less with bacteria. But the difference is extremely small, and the idea that people in urban areas come less into contact with bacteria than in rural areas has been contested, in fact urban areas are breeding grounds for major diseases, city rats are still to this day major sources of diseases in the West.

If you let kids play in the mud all day will the rate of crohn's disease go down? I really really doubt it. Farmers actually have the same rate of crohn's disease as non-farmers.

 

[Osprey101]

Actually, Crohn's is marginally more common in urban areas than rural locations. This has been used to debate whether Crohn's is a mycobacterial disorder, but the difference is small.

As for heritability:

From the leading text on the subject (Kirsner's Inflammatory Bowel Diseases): "Current data suggest that a child of affected parents has a 5% risk when the proband has CD and 1.6% when the proband has UC." (Reference) The risk increases to up to 37% if both parents are affected; heritability is higher in Jews (7.8%) than non-Jews (5.8%). (Reference)

"It is important to emphasize to patients that although their offspring may have an increased risk of developing IBD relative to the general population, the absolute risk is small."

Little tip: feed your child well. Lots of fermented foods. No added sugar, no junk food (yeah, I know, that's going to be tough), homemade sourdough bread if you can. Read "Breaking the Vicious Cycle," and try to reduce intake of unfermented grains (anything not fermented with sourdough: remember that ASCA- antibodies to common bread yeast- are found in 50-70% of crohnies. Sourdough does not have S. cerevisiae bread yeast, and has 100-200x as much lactic acid bacteria as yeast anyway).

Also read "Nourishing Traditions" by Fallon and Enig. The recipes are worth emulating.

Good luck to you and your child.

 

[Miekske]

Osprey, is there more information about Crohn and products with yeast? I can't eat bread and have problems with beer as well because of the yeast. Where can I find info about it?