Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a condition where the body’s immune cells wrongly attack the healthy tissue in the gut.
This causes inflammation, stomach pain, weight loss, and even bleeding. This disease includes conditions like Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say over 3 million adults in the US have this problem.
Right now, the main treatments are medicines that reduce inflammation, changes in diet and lifestyle, or sometimes surgery.
But a lot of people still have bad symptoms even when they get these treatments.
Barbara Slusher, a top researcher from Johns Hopkins Medicine, says that around 40% of IBD patients don’t get better with what’s available now. So, there’s a big need for new solutions.
What’s New?
Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine have made an exciting discovery. They’ve developed an experimental drug that targets a specific enzyme in the gut.
This enzyme becomes very active in people with IBD. The drug, which is taken by mouth, is made to work mainly in the gut and not much in other parts of the body. This is good because it reduces the chance of side effects.
In their study, they tested this drug on mice with a condition similar to IBD. The results were promising. The mice had better gut health, less bleeding, and less inflammation in their colons.
What’s even more interesting is when they tried the drug on mini human colons (organoids) in the lab, the results were also positive.
Diane Peters, one of the study’s authors, is very optimistic. She says it’s the first time a drug like this has been shown to help gut health when taken by mouth. And the best part is that they didn’t notice any bad side effects.
What’s Next?
The team has found out a lot from this new study. But this isn’t the first time they’ve looked at this enzyme.
In 2016, the same team found out that this enzyme was very active in people with IBD. They saw up to 41 times more enzyme activity in these patients!
Barbara Slusher is hopeful. She says they still want to know more about why the enzyme becomes so active in IBD. But they’re hopeful that what works in mice and lab tests will also work in people.
Now, the team is doing more research. They want to do clinical studies to see if the drug is safe and works for people with IBD. If it does, it could be a big step forward in treating this tough disease.
If you care about gut health, please read studies that green tea could boost gut health and lower blood sugar, and this diet could boost your gut health and weight loss.
For more information about health, please see recent studies about major cause of fatty liver disease, leaky gut, and results showing why a glass of red wine is good for your gut.
The study was published in Science Translational Medicine.
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