{"id":31276,"date":"2017-11-16T14:58:18","date_gmt":"2017-11-16T09:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=31276"},"modified":"2017-11-16T14:58:18","modified_gmt":"2017-11-16T09:58:18","slug":"good-gut-bacteria-may-solve-crohns-disease-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=31276","title":{"rendered":"‘Good’ gut bacteria may solve Crohn’s disease: study"},"content":{"rendered":"

MIAMI Nov 16 (TNS):<\/strong> Fixing the balance of gut bacteria by introducing a specific kind of “good” bug could help treat Crohn’s disease, a painful, inflammatory bowel condition that affects millions worldwide, researchers said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Symptoms of Crohn’s disease include frequent diarrhoea, fever, cramping, fatigue, rectal bleeding, and unexplained weight loss.<\/p>\n

The cause is unknown, and there is no cure. Some patients seek surgery or use medicine or supplements to ease the symptoms, which can appear at random.<\/p>\n

The report in the journal Science Translational Medicine calls for “wiping out a significant portion of the bacteria in the gut microbiome,” with the help of antibiotics.<\/p>\n

Then, bacteria that lack a harmful enzyme known as urease, is introduced back into the gut so that symptoms can improve.<\/p>\n

So far studies on mice and a small number of humans have shown promise in this approach, though more work is needed, study authors cautioned.<\/p>\n

“Because it’s a single enzyme that is involved in this process, it might be a targetable solution,” said senior author, Gary Wu, associate chief for research in the division of Gastroenterology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

“The idea would be that we could ‘engineer’ the composition of the microbiota in some way that lacks this particular one.”<\/p>\n

Researchers analyzed stool samples from 90 children with Crohn’s disease and compared them to 26 healthy children.<\/p>\n

They found an abundance of Proteobacteria in Crohn’s patients.<\/p>\n

This “bad” proteobacterium harbours the urease enzyme, which converts urea into ammonia, and fuels the intestinal imbalance in Crohn’s disease, researchers said.<\/p>\n

So they turned to lab mice to look for ways to combat it.<\/p>\n

Previous research has shown that giving mice the antibiotics vancomycin and neomycin, along with an intestinal purging agent used before a colonoscopy “significantly reduced the bacterial load enough to create an opportunity for a newly introduced bacterial community to establish themselves,” said the report.<\/p>\n

So researchers tried this gut-purging approach in mice, and then introduced a single bacterial species, Escherichia coli.<\/p>\n

If the E. coli was negative for the enzyme urease, the mice’s gut health improved.<\/p>\n

If the E. coli contained urease, mice experienced worsening intestinal inflammation and colitis.<\/p>\n

So far, researchers reported that five human subjects also underwent the antibiotic and colonoscopy-prep, and saw their intestinal bacterial load reduced 100,000-fold.<\/p>\n

This suggests it “might be possible to engineer the composition of the gut microbiota in patients with inflammatory bowel disease,” said the study.<\/p>\n

A new study by Penn researchers in cooperation with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is underway to further examine this approach.<\/p>\n

“Now that we can effectively reduce bacterial load in humans it may now be possible to engineer the microbiota into a different configuration in a manner similar to what we have achieved in mice,” Wu said.<\/p>\n

“Although we’re closer now, there is still more work to be done.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MIAMI Nov 16 (TNS): Fixing the balance of gut bacteria by introducing a specific kind of “good” bug could help treat Crohn’s disease, a painful, inflammatory bowel condition that affects millions worldwide, researchers said Wednesday. Symptoms of Crohn’s disease include frequent diarrhoea, fever, cramping, fatigue, rectal bleeding, and unexplained weight loss. The cause is unknown, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[76],"class_list":["post-31276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31276"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31278,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31276\/revisions\/31278"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}