yes quite interesting.. I have read and watched a few things on TV that say it also may be linked to Johnes disease that cows get, very similar to CD.. it says these cows, loose weight, have diarrhea etc and yet are still milked and then eventually sent off to the meat plant-meaning their disease is in our food chain and we are eating it..

This does not surprise me considering what they FEED cows these days. Such as chicken poop! I grew up on a Carnation dairy 5 generations. They used to feed cows only plant matter. You would not believe all the crap they feed them now. Its disgusting. I wish I could afford my own cow to milk myself. I raised my kids on a farm and only fed them OUR food.

i have heard this too and that is because our milk is not generally ultra pasturized. i started to drink organic milk for that reason. it tastes soooo much better, however my doctor thinks i am lactose intolerant now because everytime i drink milk i get really bad gas. oh what a day!

Oh, that is interesting! And I can't drink milk...I get terribly sick when I do.

There is no telling what our bodies absorb in the water and the food chain.....

Yeah, I drank a lot of milk before I started developing these abdominal pains (1 to 2 glasses a day). I had been drinking exclusively organic milk for several months before I got sick. I guess it just goes to show that just because it's organic, doesn't mean that the milk has been ultra-pasteurized or that the cows aren't infected with the MAP bacteria.

The real clincher is that Crohn's patients may be wrongly led down a path of immunosuppressant drugs when what they really need are antibiotics that are specifically designed to stop mycobacterium paratuberculosis (MAP).

Professor John Hermon-Taylor, one of the experts quoted in the above article, has had enormous success treating his patients with a three-drug regimen. They are started on a dose of Rifabutin 150mg twice daily with food, combined with Clarithromycin 250mg twice daily and Clofazimine 50mg twice daily.

Even with these three drugs, it's still very hard to eradicate, but he and many doctors are now convinced that Crohn's is caused by bacteria, and some people are genetically predisposed to falling victim to that bacteria.

There is also a GI in Florida who frequently writes about his anti-MAP bacteria regimen. His name is Ira Shafran. Maybe people on this board can seek him out and possibly get this antibiotic therapy. From what I understand, you need to be on it for at least 2 years, but the benefits are often pretty immediate.

More info here:

http://www.crohns.org/

And here's a recent video presentation by Dr. Taylor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhjuCBXQSKk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SizkLaThnJ8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4uITGGdKNM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBsnjI5LPzw

What rubbish....MAP is not identical to Crohn's it has been discounted over and over again. This has been tested over and over again even back Dr. Crohn himself. Crohn's is a genetic disorder and milk or anything else can not alter your genics. Crohn's is a genitic disorder but it does not seem to be a hereditary disease, which means that it is not passed from parent to child like some diseases are.

They have now found up to 32 genes that can be found in people with Crohn's.

Before they can state that it is contributed to one single thing they need to understand everything that contributory to these genes.

Also if milk is the problem I can't see this. I have lived in England, Australia and Canada. I have not driken milk for 45 years and have had Crohn's for 34 years.

I have family memebers with Crohn's, Ulcerative Colitis and spastic colon. We have been through the genes testing to see if there is a heridatary factor. They couldn't conclude that in our case that it is heriditary.

Also the report is a year old...and more inforamation has come forth to disprove this in England.

Map doesnt create crohn's but it may make it worse and thats the point of the article. I saw it on myself that drinking milk gives me terrible pain and then i have to take antibiotics for few days to get better. I like milk/cheese so every few month i try it again and again find the same problem.
Next time ill try boiling the milk before eating lets see if that helps.

Shoshanna:

I'm not sure why you are so angrily dismissive of these legitimate studies. Dr. Crohn, who first documented the disease that is his namesake, first suspected a link between MAP and Crohn's but was unable to prove it at the time due to the technology available in the early 1900's.

His theory was put on the shelf until technology was able to re-visit it. There are now techniques available to detect MAP bacteria.

I am not suggesting that milk is the only source of MAP or that it's the only way one can get Crohn's. MAP is found in a lot of things and those who are genetically susceptible to it are the most at risk.

In any event, your reluctance to hear these theories, read the reports, listen to the experts illustrates the kind of polarizing effect at work now in the field of medicine.

Remember that the same kind of dismissive attitude was taken by doctors who thought it was "rubbish" that the H. Pylori bug caused stomach ulcers. Nowadays it's accepted in the medical community as fact.

I just can't see how you can be so dismissive when the clinical trials (not early trials...we're talking phase III and phase IV trials) have been so overwhelmingly successful?

Here's one more, very recent post from the American Society for Microbiology (dated August, 2008):

http://www.asm.org/Media/index.asp?bid=60291

Quote:

"Scientists largely agree that multiple factors cause CD, including an environmental stimulus, a genetic propensity, and an overactive inflammatory and immune system triggered by an unknown event. There is mounting evidence that the unknown trigger may be infectious in origin, with several bacteria currently under consideration. This complicated network of causation has confounded efforts to understand CD, says Carol Nacy, Ph.D., CEO of Sequella, Inc., who chaired the colloquium and is the reports co-author. MAP may be one of the causes of CD, Nacy adds, since, among other things, multiple studies identified the pathogen in tissues of CD patients. Treating some of these patients with antibiotics that target Mycobacteria provided relief from symptoms.

"Johnes disease is a severe and fatal bacterial infection that strikes cattle, sheep, and other livestock. MAP has long been identified as the cause of Johnes disease. Despite efforts to limit the spread of MAP, roughly 68% of cattle herds in this country are infected, meaning one or more animals in the herd carry the bacterium and may develop Johnes disease or spread the infection to other animals. MAP has been found in some dairy productsmilk and cheeseand beef on supermarket shelves."

As you stated:

"Johnes disease is a severe and fatal bacterial infection that strikes cattle, sheep, and other livestock. MAP has long been identified as the cause of Johnes disease. Despite efforts to limit the spread of MAP, roughly 68% of cattle herds in this country are infected, meaning one or more animals in the herd carry the bacterium and may develop Johnes disease or spread the infection to other animals. MAP has been found in some dairy productsmilk and cheeseand beef on supermarket shelves."

Crohn's is not an infectious disease....it has been termed a genitc disorder. There is a big difference. I work in the feild of Laboratory sciences as a researcher of human diseases and disorders.

There is no conclusive evidence to this so far. It has been tested and tested over and over again. With no conclusive evidence.

Shoshanna, I understand you work in laboratory sciences. But it is clear that these reports are from people who are also researchers and experts in the field and they believe Crohn's is caused by an infectious agent. These aren't quacks, but respected members of the medical field and studies coming from legitimate sources.

So far I've offered URL after URL to stories from qualified sources showing that Crohn's may be caused by an infectious agent. Obviously you are in the camp of people who choose not to believe it. However, I have yet to see recent studies on the web that are discounting the more recent tests and trials. If you find one (other than the ones from the Dairy & Meat lobbyists, who have everything to lose), please post it.

Otherwise, we're just going to have to agree to disagree. I choose to believe, based on what I've read, that Crohn's is in fact caused by an infectious agent, based on mounting evidence, and that there are some of us who are genetically more susceptible to that infectious agent.