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not being breastfed as a baby could be related with risk of a developing IBD?

Do you think it could be the origin of your IBD in some way?

In my case there is the circumstance that I was totally fed with formula milk during my baby life. More testimonials could be enlightening because I'm always wondering WHY?

On the other hand I know that this illness is very difficult to understand, and it frustates . So many advances in the world on techs etc, but many diseases are still not understood
 
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my little penguin

Moderator
Staff member
Not the cause in my kiddos case
Both kids were exclusively breastfed - no formula at all
One kiddo has ibd - dx at age 7
Other kiddo doesn’t have ibd
My sisters two kids both had nothing but formula - no breast milk
Neither has ibd
 

Scipio

Well-known member
Location
San Diego
So..It doesn't seem to have a relationship, contrary to what I have read in some studies.
You can't conclude anything at all based on three responses from random Crohn's patients on the internet. This is why they need to determine these things by running clinical studies - say a case/control study involving hundreds (maybe thousands) of people with and without Crohn's (cases and controls) that are matched with respect to age, sex, race, family wealth, and other demographic characteristics, and then you look to see if the rate of having been breast fed was statistically any different in the Crohn's group vs. the control group.

If it turns out that breast feeding is significantly less common in the Crohn's group, then it can be concluded that those two factors are "associated" with each other. It would not prove that breast feeding caused or prevented the Crohn's, only that Crohn's and breast feeding or not are associated.

To prove cause and effect you would need to start with bunch of newborn babies and have them randomly assigned to be breast fed or not and then follow both groups for decades to see whether the rate of Crohn's disease is any different. Of course that trial will never happen because it's too expensive, and scientists' careers are too short to carry on a single study for decades. Plus, very few mothers who otherwise wanted to breast feed would agree to forgo breast feeding their baby based on some hypothesis. Thus, we are stuck with the non-randomized, retrospective studies, that are usually riddled with error and confounding factors, that at best can show only "association."
 

DustyKat

Super Moderator
Both of my IBD children were exclusively breastfed until about 6 months and then for about another 9 months along with solids.

When my first child was diagnosed I ran with the theory of 1/3 genetic 1/3 environment 1/3 trigger. Then my second child was diagnosed. Same location (albeit the most common site), same severity, same response, same outcome, same long term treatment. Over the years I have been very hard pushed not to believe in their case it is genetic and genetic alone.

My partner, their father, had a scope 2 days ago due to a 1in 3 postive FOB that they do for routine bowel cancer screening. We asked the GI to go the extra distance into the ileum. I have always been of the opinion that he had decidedly dodgy bowels but nothing that would equate to IBD outright or require further investigation on its own. Anyway preliminary findings are that he does indeed have Crohn’s.

Now try and convince me it’s not genetic. Lol
 
I am being surprised seeing that some of you have more than one child with Crohn's. I thought they were more isolated cases. My brother was recently diagnosed with SIBO
 

my little penguin

Moderator
Staff member
We were told siblings have a 33% risk of developing Crohn’s disease
Given my child started having GI issues at 14 days old -my bet is genetics
 

crohnsinct

Well-known member
GEM - genetics, environment and microbiome. They can’t say for sure any one thing causes Crohn’s but they have a lot of contributors. Even then you need the perfect storm to twirl it all together and cause Crohn’s. It’s complicated. I know we all want it to a simple this caused that so stop doing it but it’s not that simple. Meanwhile, we try to stay away from the bad things because let’s be honest, they are linked to Crohn’s but also dozens of other health related complications also.
 

kiny

Well-known member
Breastfeeding likely has no impact on the prevalence of this disease.

The "environmental factor" involved in crohn's disease is not taken literally enough. It involves an environmental trigger in the immediate environment.

Van Kruiningen showed in many studies that Crohn's disease involves clustering in Northern France and Belgium. People who live in a household with someone who has crohn's disease, are more likely to develop crohn's disease themselves, regardless if there is any blood lineage or overlap in genetics. Van Kruiningen showed that Morrocan immigrants who migrated to France and Belgium, are also more likely to develop crohn's disease within the first year after migration, than their siblings who haven't migrated but still reside in Morocco.

These studies show there is an environmental factor at play. This factor is not related to habits, upbringings, medication, or genetics. The environment people are exposed to affect the likely of developing crohn. Some argue it is due to exposure to a Western diet, but I have my doubts because the onset of disease in these migrants happened quite rapidly after migration. It is more likely that the environmental trigger is a common foodborne bacteria like campylobacter for example, which explains the disease clustering. This is also what Van Kruiningen proposed as a likely explanation.

Although Van Kruiningen his studies are very valuable, since they show Crohn's disease is clustered, not a lot of research has been done to determine the possible triggers. Pets for example were not properly screened, no research to determine the prevalence of zoonotic diseases in the region, no records of foodborne infections in the food supply. We know Crohn's disease involves clustering and therefore an environmental trigger is at play, we don't know what it is.
 
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kiny

Well-known member
I don't know when the word "environment" started to creep into etiology discussions regarding crohn's disease. It is a broad term while Van Kruiningen was very specific.

While he does mention an environmental factor in his conclusion, and this is likely where this word creeped in, he refers to this phenomenon differently. He found statistical anomalies in the prevalence of crohn's disease within certain households, and calls it "familial crohn's disease". But when he says this, he doesn't just mean it runs in families, he means crohn's disease clusters in housholds. In his early studies he suspected contagion, but started to focus more on environmental triggers later on.

It's possible that crohn's disease is mildly contagious, but unlikely. It is much more likely that the trigger that caused clustering of cases, was shared. A chronically contaminated food supply or drinking water for example, which would lead to foodborne infections increasing the likelyhood of developing crohn's disease within that household.

Crohn's disease is a clustered and familial disease. The environmental trigger that enables disease onset, is not found in the wider environment but in a household. Van Kruiningen suspects a foodborne infection, so does Anthony Segal. Foodborne infections are common in the West, onset of crohn's disease involves acute fever, nightsweats, people throwing up, and endoscopically it involves early tissue inflammation near peyer's patches. This all indicates the person has been infected, likely with a foodborne pathogen that was present in the food supply.
 
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kiny

Well-known member
The idea that the trigger that lead to Crohn's disease onset is a foodborne pathogen, ties in loosely with the cold-chain-hypothesis of crohn's disease.

It's hard to explain why there are almost no old records of anyone describing crohn's disease. While Dalziel is very likely describing crohn's disease when he talks about inflammatory enteritis, there are no real records of anything that even remotely describes crohn's disease before that. The most reasonable explaination is that the disease simply didn't exist prior.

The cold-chain-hypothesis suggests that the introduction of a cold-chain food supply where people preserve food by freezing it in a fridge, explains the sudden appearance of crohn's disease in the early 20th cenutry, described in 1913 by Dalziel. The idea being that preserving food increases the potential to grow pathogenic bacteria which would increase the prevalence of crohn's disease.

To patients, this doesn't really matter anymore. Knowing if a foodborne bacteria was behind disease onset matters, but what happened before is not really beneficial. If governments have shown anything, it is that they don't take foodborne infections very serious, even though they are omnipresent in the Western food supply chain.
 
The idea that the trigger that lead to Crohn's disease onset is a foodborne pathogen, ties in loosely with the cold-chain-hypothesis of crohn's disease.

It's hard to explain why there are almost no old records of anyone describing crohn's disease. While Dalziel is very likely describing crohn's disease when he talks about inflammatory enteritis, there are no real records of anything that even remotely describes crohn's disease before that. The most reasonable explaination is that the disease simply didn't exist prior.

The cold-chain-hypothesis suggests that the introduction of a cold-chain food supply where people preserve food by freezing it in a fridge, explains the sudden appearance of crohn's disease in the early 20th cenutry, described in 1913 by Dalziel. The idea being that preserving food increases the potential to grow pathogenic bacteria which would increase the prevalence of crohn's disease.

To patients, this doesn't really matter anymore. Knowing if a foodborne bacteria was behind disease onset matters, but what happened before is not really beneficial. If governments have shown anything, it is that they don't take foodborne infections very serious, even though they are omnipresent in the Western food supply chain.
@kiny, have you read this article? https://www.sciencenews.org/article/black-death-immunity-gene-crohns-disease-health It made a big wave when it first came out. I am curious what your take on it is?

With regards to the role that the genetics plays, our doctor mentioned a few markers that if tested positive from a non-Crohns person, would warrant proactive monitoring which tells me that the medical community has identified and favored a few genetic indicators for pre-Crohns diagnosis. Again, what do you think about the progress of identifying generic markers for Crohn's?
 

Scipio

Well-known member
Location
San Diego
It's hard to explain why there are almost no old records of anyone describing crohn's disease. While Dalziel is very likely describing crohn's disease when he talks about inflammatory enteritis, there are no real records of anything that even remotely describes crohn's disease before that. The most reasonable explaination is that the disease simply didn't exist prior.
It's tough to make a definitive diagnosis across a span of over 1000 years, but King Alfred the Great of England suffered for 20 years from a bowel disease that, based on descriptions written at the time, sounds a lot like fistulizing Crohn's disease.

 
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