My Crohn's and Colitis Blog » What Is Colitis » What causes colitis to be a Jewish disease?
What causes colitis to be a Jewish disease?
Question:
I don’t know but if you find out anymore info please post. Also, it affects more Jewish women than men, although I am not jewish, my husband had a history of stomach disorders as did his mother, both Jewish. Now I have crohn’s and uc and my father had ilitis. Querry Much more than that, I did it my way!….Cat
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Funny that this thread was started. I always wondered about UC and the Jewish population. When I found this group on the Internet about 6 years ago, I noticed how many last names were "of the tribe". I’ve also asked various gastroenterologists about it. Possibly something genetic, but nothing has every been pinned down. As stated before – we can’t be the only ones wondering about this – got to be some research SOMEWHERE! …anyway – just my .02 Regards to you all Eat (the right foods) and be well! Larry
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As far as I know, except for converts, all Jews originated in the area now called Israel or just to the east of it. A few thousand years is as nothing to a mutation or a specific unusual gene.
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If any of you have microsoft encarta, take a look at the migration of the viking population. I wonder if there is some relationship to different gene pools mixing as might seem to be the case, and give some explanation to the ashkenazi vs sephardic relationship relative to incidence of IBD. This would also seem to relate to the higher incidence level of IBD along the UK coast lines, as well as in particular regions of the US.
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No, I’m not. But neither would I rule out some other factor, as yet unknown or unidentified which does cause a genetic bias towards the developmend of CD/UC/IBD. I don’t mean the disease is genetically caused, just a genetically induced susceptibility. So far as I know, however, there ain’t no such animal (or correlation). The tenor of the thread was suggesting that CD/UC/IBD was a Jewish disease passed on by those whose ancestors originated in the eastern Mediterranian regions. My post was a sort of side bar to spur some recognition of the fallacies inherent in such an assumption. Jews come from that region, but so do milk drinkers, and there are more milk drinkers than Jews. Ergo, Jewishness has nothing to do with it! (But then neither does milk drinking!). Oddly enough, that is the same area in which the ability to drink cow’s milk containing lactose first developed. It is a trait shared by those of Caucasian (Southern Russia and Celtic), Semitic (Jewish and Arab), and Sudanese (North African Black) ancestry. Don’t think there’s a correlation as there is between sickling blood cells and immunity to malaria, (also from the same general region) but then again…. Please expand on this. Are you suggesting that milk is the cause of colitis EVEN if it is not related to lactose intolerance?
– Bill
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Oddly enough, that is the same area in which the ability to drink cow’s milk containing lactose first developed. It is a trait shared by those of Caucasian (Southern Russia and Celtic), Semitic (Jewish and Arab), and Sudanese (North African Black) ancestry. Don’t think there’s a correlation as there is between sickling blood cells and immunity to malaria, (also from the same general region) but then again…. Bill ___ genetic information shows that IBD is prevalent in the gene pool surrounding the mediterranean – picking up thereby people whose ancestors originated in Palestine/Israel, Italy, Greece…
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Oddly enough, that is the same area in which the ability to drink cow’s milk containing lactose first developed. It is a trait shared by those of Caucasian (Southern Russia and Celtic), Semitic (Jewish and Arab), and Sudanese (North African Black) ancestry. Don’t think there’s a correlation as there is between sickling blood cells and immunity to malaria, (also from the same general region) but then again….
Please expand on this. Are you suggesting that milk is the cause of colitis EVEN if it is not related to lactose intolerance?
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I have CD and I am of Swedish and Scottish descent. My mother has irritable bowel syndrome, and she is from the Scottish line. -Lindi Austin, Texas – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Has any research been able to pin down the factors that makes colitis a "Jewish disease" among Eastern European Jews? What factors trigger it among us? I had a great-grandfather AND his brother who had "bowel disease" and yet colitis skipped a generation or two among all the relatives. Any thoughts?
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There you have it…. Ask any Englishman, and he’ll tell you the Scots have always had their bowels in an uproar…. :-) Almost as bad as the bloody damn Irish! Contentious bastards, the lot of us, er, um, them! <grin and wink. Bill ___ I have CD and I am of Swedish and Scottish descent. My mother has irritable bowel syndrome, and she is from the Scottish line. -Lindi Austin, Texas Has any research been able to pin down the factors that makes colitis a "Jewish disease" among Eastern European Jews? What factors trigger it among us? I had a great-grandfather AND his brother who had "bowel disease" and yet colitis skipped a generation or two among all the relatives. Any thoughts?
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genetic information shows that IBD is prevalent in the gene pool surrounding the mediterranean – picking up thereby people whose ancestors originated in Palestine/Israel, Italy, Greece…
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genetic information shows that IBD is prevalent in the gene pool surrounding the mediterranean – picking up thereby people whose ancestors originated in Palestine/Israel, Italy, Greece…
Yet this does not include any other Jews living in those areas for the past several hundreds of years whose ancestors were either native to that area or who originated in Spain……
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1/2 Hungarian Jew, 1/2 Lithuanian Jew here with Crohn’s. I really don’t think we have enough information to jump to conclusions. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – In my own experience and exposure, it would seem that ulcerative colitis/Crohns has a common root among specifically Jews whose ancestors originated in Ukraine/Poland. If it is thus genetic, then what is specific to those Jews? I do not believe it is common either among Sephardic/Middle Eastern Jews or Hungarian Jews or Lithuanian Jews. Any comments? Thanks.
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I had written: Hm, I have UC, and my family is from Byelorus … Hmmm…… I guess my theory about Poland/Ukraine includes Byelorus, although the relatives from up north there did not have it.
Well, if you want to confuse matters even more, my other grandmother was from Latvia 8-). Be well, Hadass — National Research Council of Canada Phone: (204) 984 – 4535 Institute for Biodiagnostics Fax: (204) 984 – 7036 435 Ellice Avenue, Winnipeg,MB,R3B 1Y6 http://www.ibd.nrc.ca/~eviatar Obligatory disclaimer: NRC wouldn’t dream of saying a thing like that.
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I do not have Crohns, but do have Ulcerative Colitis. My father had it and my grandfather had it. And my son and daughter to some extent and my niece, to some extent. I have a Clotting Factor 11 missing(or very low) in my blood. This is privalent in European Jews, and so is the colitis. My hemotologist says that IT IS BECAUSE OF THE MARRYING WITHIN FAMILIES. THE PEOPLE GENERATIONS BACK, DID NOT KNOW THAT THEY WERE RELATED, I.E., COUSINS, ETC. I don’t know whether this is really true, however I do know that he looked up the Factor 11 deficiency, and it is prevalent in European Jews. Thanks, and feel well. Ed
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I think it was on this newsgroup that I heard some months ago that more recent studies had shown there was no greater incidence of CD amongst Jews than elsewhere – and further some learned post-er suggested that since Dr Crohn was himself a Jew working at a (The?) Jewish Hospital when he studied the disease, the idea of its "Jewishness" came from early figures that were more connected with the hospitals population than the general population. Just my 2c worth. Wish I could remember who first "told" me that….
Response:
Has any research been able to pin down the factors that makes colitis a "Jewish disease" among Eastern European Jews? What factors trigger it among us? I had a great-grandfather AND his brother who had "bowel disease" and yet colitis skipped a generation or two among all the relatives. Any thoughts?
While is certainly isn’t a predominantly factor unique to the Jewish people, the intermarrigage of Ashkenazi (European Jews) had a gene pool effect. Thus, the lack of clotting factor 11 is a primary reason (and a common trait among Ashkenazi with colitis and sometimes chrons). As the diaspora continues, and marriage outside of relatives (such as might have happened in the smaller schtetle) becomes more frequent, the skipping of generations will become more apparent – though the tendency will always remain and pop up here and there. Shabbat Shalom (Good shabbas) or Shavuah Tov – depending on when http://www.aloe-vera.org
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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Has any research been able to pin down the factors that makes colitis a "Jewish disease" among Eastern European Jews? What factors trigger it among us? I had a great-grandfather AND his brother who had "bowel disease" and yet colitis skipped a generation or two among all the relatives. Any thoughts? From what I’ve read CD/UC are no more "Jewish diseases" than AIDS is a gay male disease. It used to be said that they were Jewish diseases, but I think that’s been refuted now. I have no Jewish ancestry at all and I have CD, while my boyfriend is 100 percent Jewish (Eastern European) and does not have CD. This is probably why it isn’t considered a Jewish disease anymore (because many non-Jews get it and many Jews don’t). I wish I had a URL or some other evidence. I have read it somewhere on the WWW though. Jennifer to reply remove nospam from address
Jennifer, Clearly IBD isn’t just a Jewish disease, but there is a higher incidence in Jews of Eastern European ancestry. I suspect there must be research going on attempting to figure out why, but I also suspect there aren’t any findings, or we would have heard about it. My own suspicions are that there are a number of different forms of UC and CD, and perhaps the form of the disease that runs in families (and among Jews) is somewhat different from that with no family history of IBD. In my case, after being diagnosed with UC, I discovered that there was a lot of the disease in my family: my father, one of his sisters and my first cousin all had UC. Later, my father’s other sister in her 80’s was diagnosed with UC and CD. Then I discovered that 2 of my mom’s sisters had UC. And there was an old family tale of my great grandfather on my father’s side having died at an early age of a GI rupture of some sort (sounds suspicious). I’m not certain exactly where my family originated, but I believe my father’s family was from Poland/Ukraine and my mother’s from Russia/Latvia, and all Jewish. One would think that with all of this UC in my family, it wouldn’t have taken years of misdiagnoses before I was finally diagnosed with UC. There was so much "colitis" in my family that I never took it seriously until I became disabled by my illness. Nobody ever talked about what it really was, all I remember is my father needing to run to the bathroom frequently. My mother tells me that one of her sisters (who has UC) keeps on questioning her about me, saying, "it never kept me from doing…." Of course she chain-smoked most of her adult life (I guess nicotine can help) until she had to quit due to emphysema, and she’s been on prednisone ever since. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe that’s why my father got a lot more irritable after he gave up smoking. I guess I’m regressing a bit from the topic. Arnold
Response:
Has any research been able to pin down the factors that makes colitis a "Jewish disease" among Eastern European Jews? What factors trigger it among us? I had a great-grandfather AND his brother who had "bowel disease" and yet colitis skipped a generation or two among all the relatives. Any thoughts?
From what I’ve read CD/UC are no more "Jewish diseases" than AIDS is a gay male disease. It used to be said that they were Jewish diseases, but I think that’s been refuted now. I have no Jewish ancestry at all and I have CD, while my boyfriend is 100 percent Jewish (Eastern European) and does not have CD. This is probably why it isn’t considered a Jewish disease anymore (because many non-Jews get it and many Jews don’t). I wish I had a URL or some other evidence. I have read it somewhere on the WWW though. Jennifer to reply remove nospam from address
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Crohn’s is not race specific. I am not Jewish and I have it. It does seem to have a tendency to run in families for some reason. I don’t think anyone has ever pinpointed what causes it.
Crohn’s is not race specific – you are correct. But, for some reason, there is a lot of Crohn’s disease in Jewsih people of Eastern European background – I was taught this in nursing school. The reasons for this are apparently not yet known. There is also a high incidence of MS in all people of Eastern European backgrounds – that is Ukranians, Poles and Russians – particularly in people of this background who have settled in Canada’s Red River Valley. The reasons for this are also not yet known. Terri (AKushner posting from her daughter’s computer)
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Has any research been able to pin down the factors that makes colitis a "Jewish disease" among Eastern European Jews?
Hasn’t a genetic link been supposed? I seem to recall that ankylosing spondylitis and UC have a significant relationship, and AS has a genetic connection. I tested positive for the AS marker several years before being diagnosed with UC. E. O’Daniel Boise, Idaho
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Hi! I live in Poland which is in eastern Europe in particular. I am not a Jew but I have UC. But I have read that those diseases are connected with your life style too. Better living conditions etc increase the possibility of UC/CD. Look at the numbers: only about 3000(!!!!) people in Poland suffering both and in States? Radek
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In my own experience and exposure, it would seem that ulcerative colitis/Crohns has a common root among specifically Jews whose ancestors originated in Ukraine/Poland. If it is thus genetic, then what is specific to those Jews? I do not believe it is common either among Sephardic/Middle Eastern Jews or Hungarian Jews or Lithuanian Jews. Any comments? Thanks.
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In my own experience and exposure, it would seem that ulcerative colitis/Crohns has a common root among specifically Jews whose ancestors originated in Ukraine/Poland.
Hm, I have UC, and my family is from Byelorus … there is a peak of MS and IBD here in Manitoba, for unknown reasons, Jews and non-Jews alike. BTW, there is also an IBD hot spot among French Canadians in Quebec. Be well, Hadass — National Research Council of Canada Phone: (204) 984 – 4535 Institute for Biodiagnostics Fax: (204) 984 – 7036 435 Ellice Avenue, Winnipeg,MB,R3B 1Y6 http://www.ibd.nrc.ca/~eviatar Obligatory disclaimer: NRC wouldn’t dream of saying a thing like that.
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Hm, I have UC, and my family is from Byelorus … there is a peak of MS and IBD here in Manitoba, for unknown reasons, Jews and non-Jews alike. BTW, there is also an IBD hot spot among French Canadians in Quebec. Be well, Hadass
Hmmm…… I guess my theory about Poland/Ukraine includes Byelorus, although the relatives from up north there did not have it.
Response:
Has any research been able to pin down the factors that makes colitis a "Jewish disease" among Eastern European Jews? What factors trigger it among us? I had a great-grandfather AND his brother who had "bowel disease" and yet colitis skipped a generation or two among all the relatives. Any thoughts?
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