Got Milk? Then you may have Crohn's

[Sub Atomic]

Milk bug may cause Crohn’s disease

Bacteria also found in patients with irritable bowel syndrome

LONDON, Aug 6 — British scientists said on Wednesday they had found a link between a common bowel disorder and a type of bacteria that can be passed to humans in milk.

.snip.

Crohn’s disease causes inflammation of the intestine and symptoms include diarrhea, pain, weight loss and tiredness. About 100,000 people in Britain alone are affected, with about 5,000 new cases reported every year.

.more.

[cjbuchanan]

1. It got me wondering if

Something about Chron's might cause MAP to get trapped in one's body. So it might not be that MAP causes it, they just indicate what is going on.

If it was just the MAP, I do not understand why more people (especially families that drink the same milk) would not have Chron's. There must be something else going on. Then again, I am not a scientist, so what do I know.

Do you suffer from Chron’s?

[trotsky]

2. Gotta have my milk.

I generally drink the "recommended" amount of milk each day. (Three 8-oz. glasses.) Have done so for nearly my whole life (more than 30 years). I don't have Crohn's, and I give blood regularly where I believe they test for it.

Maybe a difference in pasteurization in the UK vs. US?

[dofus]

3. I'm under the impression that Crohn's

is an auto-immune disease. Some other auto-immune diseases are Type I diabetes, alopecia areata, scleraderma, and lupus. They mostly range from unpleasant to fatal, except for alopecia areata which simply causes hair loss, although being totally bald is less than fun for most people with it.

The essential thing, as I understand it, about auto-immune diseases is that they don't really understand what causes it, and so far there are no cures, only various treatments. It's thought that perhaps there's a viral trigger of some kind that causes the onset of a particular auto-immune disease in the sufferer, but that's not entirely clear. Maybe a bacterial onset is also likely, at least with Crohn's.

Remeber how for the longest time duodenal ulcers were assumed to be stress related, until they discovered it's caused by bacteria.

Stress is often blamed for certain auto-immune diseases, which is simply bull. Otherwise we'd all have one auto-immune disease or another, given how stressful most people's lives are.