Chrons Disease: Gene variant raises risk of Chrons disease

Pediatric researchers in a children's hospital in Philadelphia have identified a gene variant that raises the risk of Chrons disease in Children.

This research backs up some other results from some German researchers who also found the same gene variant in the adult form of Chrons disease.

"Because Chrons disease is complex, with multiple genes interacting with each other and with environmental factors, it's important to sort out specific genes and to replicate previous findings," said the study's first author, Robert N. Baldassano, M.D., director of the Center for Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease at Children's Hospital. "There are different types of Chrons disease, so classifying types by genetic profiles may help us select the most appropriate treatments for each patient."

This study was pretty comprehensive as they compared the genomes of 143 children with Chrons disease to genomes of 282 children who did not have the disease. In the results, they discovered that 64 percent of children with Chrons disease had a specific variant form of the gene ATG16L1, compared with 52 percent of the healthy children. The odds ratio for children with the gene variant was 1.62 compared to control children, all this means that children who have the variant are 62 percent more likely to have Chrons disease than children with the more common form.

I guess the more studies done like this will all lead to more understanding of Chrons disease and hopefully lead to better treatments and possibly a cure one day.