News round up 8th October 2011

New diagnostic test

The UCF Research Foundation has licensed a promising diagnostic test for the detection of the mycobacterium avium paratuberculosis, also known as MAP, bacterium in humans to an international biopharmaceutical company that is developing a treatment for Crohn’s disease.

The diagnostic technology is able to diagnose MAP infection in humans using DNA testing based on nested PCR molecular technology. MAP is present in roughly 50 percent of people who suffer from Crohn’s disease and could be a leading cause of the disease. You can read more about this here.

Anti-biotics and Crohn’s

People who are prescribed a large number of antibiotics tend to have a higher risk of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), a new study finds, providing more evidence that antibiotics may be disturbing bacteria in our intestine.

“It’s not that antibiotics cause inflammatory bowel disease, but that it further supports the hypothesis that changing the gut flora may be disadvantageous,” co-author Dr. Charles N. Bernstein, who studies bowel disorders at the University of Manitoba, told Reuters Health. You can read more here.

Perforated Bowel

A young man with Crohn’s Disease from Wigan was attacked in a nightclub and suffered a perforated bowel – very nasty. Sadly his recovery has been slow. You can read more here.

Competition

Casey Abrams announces the finalists in his IBD sufferer of the year competion. You can read more here.