<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

I mentioned in my "Bacteria, Breast-feeding, and CD" post how it might be
possible that antibiotics could trigger celiac disease by disrupting the
intestinal microflora.  Now a study shows that this may be in fact true for
Crohn's disease.  This further supports the need to investigate commensal
bacteria in celiac disease research.

Here's another thought I will leave you with on microflora and celiac
disease.  CD has been shown to be at least partially dependent on genetics
with more frequent occurance among immediate family members where at least
one has CD.  But CD may occur in one identical twin and not the other.
Besides genes, intestinal microflora are also passed between mother and
child.  A "family-line" of such flora may be established.  These microflora
may tend to protect a family from CD, increase the risk of CD, or have no
effect on CD at all.  The environment also determines the mix of
microflora.  Identical twins may carry the same genes and may share the
same microflora from their mother at birth, but the environment ultimately
colors the flora that colonizes the gut of each separate twin.  Microflora,
and not genetics, may be why one twin gets CD and the other does not.
Microflora passed between members of an ethnic culture may also determine
whether CD is common or uncommon in that culture.  Something to think
about...

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Antibiotic use a risk factor for Crohn's disease

http://www.amh.org/HealthNews/Reuters/20040205elin018.htm

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Gut. 2004 Feb;53(2):246-50

Antibiotic use and the development of Crohn's disease.

Card T, Logan RF, Rodrigues LC, Wheeler JG.

Division of Epidemiology and Public Health, Queen's Medical Centre,
University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2UH, UK. [log in to unmask]

BACKGROUND: Few environmental determinants of Crohn's disease are well
established. Some observational data exist to implicate antibiotic use as a
risk factor but these are derived from studies using questionnaires to
assess reported antibiotic use that were susceptible to recall bias. We
have therefore explored this relationship in prospectively gathered data.
METHODS: We selected incident cases of Crohn's disease from the General
Practice Research Database with at least five years of data prior to
diagnosis. Controls with five years of complete data were randomly
selected. Data were extracted on smoking, drug prescriptions, age, sex, and
a variety of symptoms and diagnoses that might be indicative of occult
Crohn's disease. Logistic regression was used to investigate the
relationship between antibiotic use and Crohn's disease. RESULTS: A total
of 587 Crohn's disease cases and 1460 controls were available for analysis.
We found that antibiotic use 2-5 years pre-diagnosis occurred in 71% of
cases compared with 58% of controls (p<0.001), and the median number of
courses was two in the cases and one in the controls (p<0.001). Adjusting
for age, sex, smoking, and use of other drugs, antibiotic use had an odds
ratio of 1.32 (1.05-1.65). We were unable to show specificity to any
subgroup of antibacterials. Associations similar to that with antibiotics
were also found with oral contraceptive, cardiovascular, and neurological
drugs. CONCLUSIONS: We found a statistically significant association
between Crohn's disease and prior antibiotic use. This cannot be explained
by recall bias, but due to lack of specificity it is unclear whether it is
causal.

PMID: 14724158 [PubMed - in process]

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