After doing my usual research on PubMed (awesome awesome resource BTW!), there are several articles a whole bunch of you will gain a whole bunch from reading.
(The articles are listed below and include the links so you can read up more on the specific studies.)
- #1 Thiopurines in inflammatory bowel disease revisited
- This study talks about 6-MP and Azathioprine (“Thiopurines”) along with a “newer” potential IBD medicaiton Tioguanine
- The language used is pretty simple to understand, and is mostly full of basic English (not always the case as you may know)
- This particular study is an overview of these medications, there are tons of links included to more detailed studies on specific aspects of 6-MP and Azathioprine and other topics…(there’s 90 citations just to give you an idea)
- #2 Management of difficult-to-treat patients with ulcerative colitis: focus on adalimumab
- Early in the report, you’ll find a pretty standard “Western Medicine” approach to treating the disease with current medicines
- You will notice towards the end of this report in the “Footnotes”, there’s numerous disclaimers about how AbbVie (who created Humira- their super BlockBuster drug) has provided funding either directly or indirectly to the main author or some related organizations that this study’s author very well could be involved with….Without trying to accuse anybody of doing unjust…I simply think it’s wise that common UC’ers like you and me at least understand some of the motivations behind some of the research, and who is paying the bill.
- #3 Nutritional modulators of ulcerative colitis: Clinical efficacies and mechanistic view
- This study appeared in the “World Journal of Gastroenterology” February 2013
- What I found particularly interesting, especially since so many of the GI doctors of the world completely disagree that there is any correlation between diet and UC is one of the final parts of the study in the conclusion section: “Because the increased prevalence of UC is potentially due to changes in dietary habits, especially in Eastern countries, it is now considered a lifestyle-related disease.” Go ahead and give the story a full read to fully understand the context of that direct quote, but its pretty amazing, and music to my ears. It’s been a long time coming for this type of language to be so out in the open amongst fellow scientists/gastroenterologists. But I think all of us with UC can benefit from the positive changes and openness in the scientific/discovery world of IBD.
- Probiotics, Vitamins, Fatty Acids are also topics discussed in this study
I hope you take the time to read the articles above to expand your UC knowledge, and who knows, there’s thousands of different scientific studies you can read any day of the week, so if you find some other topics on PubMed while you’re browsing through…more power to you! ALSO, one big tip to everyone who did not graduate with a PhD in Immunology or microbiology…(that’s about 99.972% of us with Ulcerative Colitis BTW)…IF YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND a word or phrase you see within any of the studies listed above, take an extra moment and Google the word/phrase to learn about it. Doesn’t take but a moment, and I guarantee you’ll be even smarter afterwards.
Keep your spirits up everyone. If you’re dealing with awful bloody symptoms right now, and you’re thinking there’s no way in hell you’ll ever be able to drop a hard poop ever again…well there’s a lot of us who have some positive news for you. It sure as hell can happen. It can happen pretty quickly in-fact. (have you read the post “How Fast Does the Colon Heal…”?
Adam Scheuer
(PS: If you are still wondering what the heck PubMed is… get your butt over to the PubMed intro page... and get your read on and you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about!)
I started site shortly after being diagnosed in October of 2008 with severe pancolitis (when my whole colon was inflamed).
For me, it was a very rough start with severe symptoms. Getting bounced from medication to medication was not easy or too helpful. But, I did meet another UC’er, changes several parts of my diet, and of course the rest is history.
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