It may be detected with a simple blood test crohn’s disease years before symptoms appear, according to a new study reported by SWNS.
Canadian researchers say their discovery could enable early diagnosis and potential prevention of chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
This test measures the immune system’s response to a protein called flagellin. intestinal bacteria. Researchers have found that this response is elevated in some people years before Crohn’s disease develops.
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The findings, published in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, highlight that the “interaction” between gut bacteria and immune system responses is a key step in disease development, according to the SWNS report.
Crohn’s disease is a chronic inflammatory condition. digestive tract It causes persistent gastrointestinal symptoms, pain, and fatigue, severely impacting quality of life. According to official statistics, the incidence in children has doubled since 1995.
Study leader Dr. Ken Kreitor, a clinical scientist and professor of medicine and immunology at the University of Toronto, said the presence of flagellin antibodies long before symptoms appear suggests that an immune response can trigger the disease.
A deeper understanding of this early process could lead to improved predictions. Prevention and treatmentsaid the expert.
“With today’s advanced biological therapies, patient responses are at best partial,” Kreitor told SWNS. “No one has been cured yet, so we need to do better.”
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“What we wanted to know is: Do people who are at risk, who are now healthy, have these antibodies against flagellin?” he said. “We looked, we measured, and certainly at least some of them did.”
The new study is part of the Genetics, Environment, and Microbiology (GEM) project, which has followed more than 5,000 healthy first-degree relatives of Crohn’s disease patients around the world since 2008. collect genesbiological and environmental data to better understand how diseases develop.
The study followed 381 first-degree relatives of people with Crohn’s disease, 77 of whom later developed the disease. More than 30% of them had elevated antibody responses.
The researchers said the response was strongest among siblings, highlighting the role of shared environmental exposures.
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So far, 130 of the study participants have developed Crohn’s disease, giving researchers a rare opportunity to study the early stages of the disease. The average time from blood sample collection to diagnosis was nearly 2 to 1 year.
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Previous GEM studies have shown that inflammatory substances immune response Attacks targeting gut bacteria can appear long before the disease develops.
In healthy people, intestinal bacteria coexist peacefully and play an important role. digestive health –But in people with Crohn’s disease, experts say, the immune system appears to have an abnormal response to microbes.
The Canadian research team also confirmed that this pre-symptomatic immune response is associated with the intestinal inflammation and intestinal barrier dysfunction that are hallmarks of Crohn’s disease.
Dr. Sun-Ho Lee, a gastroenterologist and member of the research team, said the new study Flagellin-tropic vaccine According to SWNS, certain high-risk individuals can prevent the disease.
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The study had several limitations, including not including experiments to show exactly how the immune response causes Crohn’s disease.
As a result, researchers were unable to identify the biological steps linking the immune response and the development of the disease. “Further validation and mechanistic studies are underway,” they said.
