Inflammatory bowel disease is a catchall that describes certain strange and troublesome stomach conditions with names like Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. Why are these strange? Anytime a disease comes with the name of a scientist attached, you know that there is something about it that is out of the ordinary. And sure enough, inflammatory bowel disease certainly is a mystifying problem - not only is it something you live with your whole life once you get it, coming under the species of an autoimmune disorder as it does, most regular attempts at a cure elude both doctors and those who suffer from it. What does it feel like to have IBD? The abnormal immune reaction that your body reacts with gives you diarrhea, bleeding down there, cramping, a fever, tiredness with no end and most disturbing of all, terrible complications that can require that you go in for surgery to be relieved of your colon.
So what exactly causes inflammatory bowel disease? As far as scientists can tell, it comes to you for reasons of an inscrutable combination of environmental factors and unfortunate genetic disposition. Let's look a little more closely at what kinds of things can actually set off an attack.
For some reason, traditionally, it is people who live in the West who usually come down with IBD. If you happen to live in Europe or North America, you run a higher risk of an association with the disease. What could it be about living in these places? It could be a kind of diet the culture in these places have or it could be something to do with the way smoking and drinking are a part of the culture in the West. Interestingly enough, that's only how it has traditionally been. A new development points to how it isn't anything to do with geographical location. The disease affects those in other parts of the world who Pick a westernized culture by choice - places like Japan, Latin America or the Far East. Of late, these parts of the world have reported such a great spurt in the number of people coming down with IBD each year. Surprisingly, inflammatory bowel disease can also have a lot to do with how in the West, we place a great deal of importance on cleanliness and sanitation. Doctors and scientists suspect that the body doesn't really take well to being denied a little bit of natural dirt in the environment.
Scientists notice that there are other factors that seem to affect the course a case takes as well. For instance, the earlier in life someone gets the disease, the more doctors suspect that genetic predisposition has something to do with it. And the prognosis can be pretty grave - a serious lifelong affliction. How about smoking? The moment you hear about a stomach disorder and smoking, you're probably ready to jump to the conclusion that smoking can only make it worse. With inflammatory bowel disease though, the connection isn't quite as simple as that. With one kind of IBD, ulcerative colitis, smokers actually have it better than non-smokers - they are at a lower risk of getting it. But it doesn't really do you any good getting lucky with the one kind when you are about to get unlucky with the other. With Crohn's disease, your risk multiplies if you smoke.
As with all autoimmune diseases, inflammatory bowel disease can be terribly difficult to track down.
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