Blood test flags digestive disease risk years before symptoms appear
“With all the advanced biologic therapy we have today, patients’ responses are partial at best,” Croitoru told SWNS. “We haven’t cured anybody yet, and we need to do better.”
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“We wanted to know: Do people who are at risk, who are healthy now, have these antibodies against flagellin?” he said. “We looked, we measured, and yes indeed, at least some of them did.”
This new research is part of the Genetic, Environmental and Microbial (GEM) Project, which has followed more than 5,000 healthy first-degree relatives of people with Crohn’s disease worldwide since 2008. The project collects genetic, biological and environmental data to better understand how the disease develops.
The presence of flagellin antibodies long before symptoms appear suggests that the immune reaction may help trigger the disease, according to the lead researcher. (iStock)
The study followed 381 first-degree relatives of Crohn’s patients, 77 of whom later developed the disease. Of those, more than 30% had elevated antibody responses.
The responses were strongest in siblings, underscoring the role of shared environmental exposure, researchers said.
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So far, 130 of the study participants have developed Crohn’s, giving researchers a rare opportunity to study its earliest stages. The average time from blood sample collection to diagnosis was nearly 2-½ years.
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Previous GEM research showed that an inflammatory immune response targeting gut bacteria can appear long before the disease develops.
The study followed 381 first-degree relatives of Crohn’s patients, 77 of whom later developed the disease. (iStock)
In healthy people, gut bacteria coexist peacefully and play an essential role in digestive health — but in Crohn’s patients, the immune system appears to mount an abnormal response against the microbes, experts say.
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The Canadian team also confirmed that this pre-disease immune response was associated with intestinal inflammation and gut barrier dysfunction, both hallmarks of Crohn’s disease.
The study did have some limitations, including that it did not include experiments to show exactly how the immune response might lead to Crohn’s disease. (iStock)
Research team member Dr. Sun-Ho Lee, a gastroenterologist, commented that this new study supports the idea of designing a flagellin-directed vaccine for certain high-risk individuals to prevent the disease, according to SWNS.
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The study did have some limitations, including that it did not include experiments to show exactly how the immune response might lead to Crohn’s disease.
As a result, the researchers could not determine the biological steps linking the immune reaction to the onset of the illness. “Further validation and mechanistic studies are underway,” they noted.
Article source: https://www.foxnews.com/health/blood-test-flags-digestive-disease-risk-years-before-symptoms-appear