Identifying & Destroying the Cause of Crohn's Disease #ibd #MAP

Encouraging and hopeful article!  

Attacking the Cause of Crohn's Disease | YottaFire:

'UCF College of Medicine professor Dr. Saleh Naser soon will participate in a clinical trial to test whether a new antibiotic therapy acquired by RedHill Biopharma can be used to treat Crohn’s disease patients.

The FDA-approved phase III trial is expected to commence within weeks by RedHill Biopharma, which licensed Naser’s DNA technology for detecting Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis, known as MAP. It is believed to be associated with Crohn’s disease. RedHill Biopharma developed the anti-MAP antibiotic regimen known as RHB 104. Crohn’s disease is a chronic inflammatory disease of the gastrointestinal tract characterized by cramping and diarrhea.

Naser developed and patented a way to detect MAP from milk, blood and tissue clinical samples. The bacterium is known to cause inflammation in the intestines of cows. It is also linked to Crohn’s disease, although its role has been debated for more than a century. Naser believes MAP is an underlying cause of the disease.

“Crohn’s disease affects more than 750,000 Americans, yet traditional treatments only address the symptoms of inflammation and not the cause,” Naser said. “I have seen case studies where patients’ lives have been restored following treatment, which removes MAP. I have high hopes that this clinical trial may lead to finding a cure.”

RedHill will be enrolling 240 subjects from the United States, Canada and Israel in this double blind clinical trial in which blood and intestinal biopsy specimens from Crohn’s patients will be tested for MAP before, during and following the one-year treatment with the antibiotic RHB 104.

“Since we acquired the license to Dr. Saleh Naser’s MAP detection technique in 2011, we have had an excellent collaboration with UCF,” said RedHill’s CEO Dror Ben-Asher. “The UCF team of researchers… is at the forefront of global academic research on MAP and its detection.”

Naser is looking forward to the trial and hopes this will end the academic debate regarding MAP and Crohn’s disease.

“I am ecstatic to be part of a team, which will help determine whether or not MAP is associated with Crohn’s disease; certainly a final answer to a one hundred-year old controversy,” Naser said.

Naser joined UCF in 1995 and has been a faculty member in the medical college since its foundation. He teaches clinical chemistry and infectious processes in the Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences within the medical school. He also serves as the graduate coordinator for three masters programs in the College of Medicine.

http://today.ucf.edu

Researchers Find Genetic Link Specific in Identifying Johne's Disease (Disease caused by MAP) in Cattle

John's the man!!!
Ewwww  think about it for a second.  $220 million each year is spent on sick cows that are affected by MAP bacteria (bacteria that causes Johnes Disease).  How many cows are we talking about here?? A LOT! No wonder the # of people with Crohn's Disease is quickly increasing.  All the freaking cows milk is tainted.  

Will vaccinating cattle protect them from such a nasty tough as steel bacteria like MAP though. Say the vaccinated cows show no signs of illness at all, but they have trace amounts of the MAP bacteria living in them that doesn't bring on Johne's Disease.  Will that small amount of bacteria that is passed to humans through dairy intake be enough to make people sick?  I'm just thinking out loud...  Just wondering how this discovery is going to affect the dairy industry.  Just have to wait and see. 

Researchers uncover genetic link to cattle diseases - Farm and Ranch Guide: Livestock News:

Posted: Wednesday, April 17, 2013 3:00 am

By Sandra Avant, ARS News Service | 0 comments

Detecting the costly, contagious Johne's disease in cattle is now easier, thanks to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists.

Johne's disease, also known as Paratuberculosis, is estimated to cost the U.S. dairy industry more than $220 million each year. It also affects sheep, goats, deer and other animals, causing diarrhea, reduced feed intake, weight loss and sometimes death.

Microbiologist John Bannantine and his colleagues at the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) National Animal Disease Center (NADC) in Ames, Iowa, discovered an antibody that's 100 percent specific in detecting Johne's disease. This is the first time a specific antibody that binds only to Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP), the pathogen that causes the disease, has been discovered. A patent has been awarded to scientists for the antibody, which could greatly benefit the improvement of diagnostic tests that confirm the presence of MAP.

Previous efforts to detect Johne's disease were hindered because all antibodies used to identify MAP strains also reacted to environmental mycobacteria, according to Bannantine, who works in NADC's Infectious Bacterial Diseases Research Unit. Some of those antibodies also reacted to the disease pathogen responsible for bovine tuberculosis (TB) and caused false-positive results.

Other research, conducted by NADC microbiologist Judy Stabel, focused on ensuring that Johne's disease vaccines do not cross-react with tests for bovine TB, a disease problem in states where wild deer infect cattle.

Stabel and her team vaccinated calves with an effective commercial Johne's vaccine to test cross reactivity with TB tests. They took blood samples for a year and then measured immune and serological responses of calves using novel TB tests.

Scientists found no cross reactivity with the TB serology tests, demonstrating that animals could be vaccinated against Johne's disease without interfering with bovine TB testing. Similar results were found with the skin test used to detect TB in cattle.

Read more about this research in the April 2013 issue of Agricultural Research magazine.

MAP- Where Are All the #MAP Organisms Living in Patients w/ #Crohns Disease?

Niiiiice find of information... props to PLOS for their open access (free) library of research!  There are so many good points that make sense about the link between MAP & Crohn's disease.  As you read this, you will understand what I mean - Check out what  is said about fistulas, also the location where MAP organisms may be found in large numbers within our body.  There are so many other significant postulations that are made that focus on the real cause of Crohn's that point in the direction to MAP.  

       Have Hope!!
Read this and be encouraged! Researchers and scientists are getting closer to identifying the cause of Crohn's.  Some people, a lot of people in the medical field do want to find a cure for this horrible disease, despite the downers working through our government who tend to go against the grin.  Try to be optimistic and your despair and helplessness will begin to change into enthusiasm.  

So many people have given up on their body and they no longer care what happens to it.  They are not involved with their treatment planning because they just don't care anymore, they don't make necessary (but difficult) adjustments to their lives that will lead to a better quality of life in the longterm because their hope is gone and they pretty much are just wasting away.  You have to remember YOU have Crohn's, Crohn's doesn't have you.... unless you give it permission to rule your body.  

My goal now, is to figure out how to get tested for this bacteria and where I have to go to have it done. I don't care where I have to go to have it done, who supports me & who thinks I'm wasting my time.  It doesn't matter to me what people think anymore.  This is a battle I fight daily and i'll do what it takes to get well.  

1st, do you know what MAP is ? (It stands for Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis  - MAP)  READ THE HIGHLIGHTS FOR GENERAL INFO THAT YOU SHOULD KNOW.

I'm so fueled, not just from this article, but the list of over 15 other articles on PLOS that I haven't read yet on with the focus on MAP.  

ARTICLE  HIGHLIGHTS 

•  "MAP has been identified in the mucosal layer and deeper bowel wall in patients with Crohn's disease by methods other than light microscopy, and by direct visualization in small numbers by light microscopy"
• "MAP is present in pasteurized milk [27], infant formula made from pasteurized milk[28], breast milk from women with Crohn's disease [29], surface water [30]–[32], soil [30], cow manure “lagoons” that can leach into surface water [33], cow manure in both solid and liquid forms that is applied as fertilizer to agricultural land [33], and municipal tap water [25],[34], providing multiple routes of transmission to humans."
• "MAP is still not accepted as the cause of Crohn's disease. The identification of MAP by methods other than direct visualization by light microscopy, and the identification of MAP in small numbers by light microscopy, has not constituted convincing evidence of causation to the medical community at large."
• "...MAP organisms might therefore be present in large numbers in the following locations in patients with Crohn's disease: 1)The blood vessels, lymph vessels (lymphatics), and lymph nodes in the mesentery of affected bowel wall segments. 2) The mesentery itself, i.e., the adipocytes that fill the mesentery. 3)The walls of fistulas."
• "While other organisms have also been identified in the intestines of patients with Crohn's disease [23], no other putative pathogenic organism causes a chronic granulomatous inflammation of the intestines..."
• "humans with Crohn's disease have antibodies to MAP antigens in their blood. ELISA studies, which detect antibodies to MAP antigens in the blood, demonstrate that anywhere from 23% to almost 90% of Crohn's patients have such antibodies [11], [15]–[17]."

 

Where Are All the (MAP) Mycobacterium avium Subspecies paratuberculosis in Patients with Crohn's Disease?

• Ellen S. Pierce mai