Antibody profiles may indicate IBD 10 years before diagnosis — The Guardian

Antibody profiles in the blood may help identify the risk of inflammatory bowel disease about ten years before a diagnosis is made. The Guardian reports on the study's findings. Inflammatory bowel diseases include Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.

They are usually treated only after symptoms appear, when the intestine may already be damaged. Scientists believe the identified immune system signals could potentially contribute to the early detection of such conditions. Analysis of samples from US military personnel A team of scientists from the University Medical Center Groningen, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Medical University of Vienna analyzed 2,000 blood samples from 500 US military personnel.

Crohn's disease was subsequently diagnosed in 200 participants, while another 200 were diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. None of these two diseases developed in the remaining 100 people. The samples were tested for antibodies that the immune system may have produced in response to hundreds of thousands of protein fragments from bacteria, viruses, food products and the body's own tissues.

More current news is available on the UA.News Telegram channel Telegram . Different signals for Crohn's disease and colitis People who were later diagnosed with Crohn's disease more often had antibodies to the Epstein-Barr virus. The differences were noticeable about a decade before diagnosis.

The strongest signal was observed in participants who later developed a more severe, complicated form of the disease, which can cause intestinal narrowing or the formation of abnormal channels. Those who later developed ulcerative colitis had a different antibody profile, including antibodies to one of the body's own proteins.

The results were published in the journal Gut and presented at the United European Gastroenterology congress in Barcelona. The authors emphasize that the findings need to be confirmed in other groups of people. The study found an association between immune signals and the subsequent development of the diseases, but does not prove that infections cause inflammatory bowel diseases.

Gastroenterologist James Lindsay, who was not involved in the work, noted that the method is currently a research tool and is not yet ready for clinical use.