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Who is affected?
 Affects
between 60,000 and 120,000 people in the UK, that’s about 1 in 600
Between
6,000 and 12,000 new cases are diagnosed each year
About
90,000 - 100,000 people live with the condition in the UK (Over 14,000
are members of NACC)
The
most common age for diagnosis is between 15 and 35
Ulcerative
Colitis affects men and women equally
The
number of new cases each year has not risen recently, but is not
decreasing
Symptoms and treatment
Ulcerative
Colitis affects the colon (large intestine) or rectum. Inflammation and
ulcers develop on the inside lining of the colon resulting in pain,
urgent and bloody diarrhoea, and continual tiredness. There is no cure
for Ulcerative Colitis at present
The
condition varies as to how much of the colon is affected and the
severity of the symptoms also fluctuates unpredictably over time.
Patients are likely to experience flare-ups in between intervals of
reduced symptoms or remission
Most
patients will be treated with drugs, including steroids, to control or
reduce the inflammation. Some people need surgery to remove the affected
part of the colon, if their symptoms do not respond to treatment with
drugs
The cause of Ulcerative Colitis
The cause has not yet been identified.
Recent Research
Research
is focusing on why some families have a greater predisposition to
Inflammatory Bowel Disease (both Ulcerative Colitis and the related
Crohn's Disease) than other families and on the process of inflammation
which is created when the immune system responds to a foreign agent. It
is possible that patients are over-reacting to some stimulus or that
their immune system fails to control the level of inflammation after
responding to the stimulus
Both
Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn's Disease are more common among relatives
than in the general population. There are some families in which
Ulcerative Colitis affects one person and Crohn's Disease another,
suggesting that the two disorders share an inherited susceptibility.
Recent research has identified the location of two genes which
pre-dispose to the conditions, but their function is not yet known. It
is likely that, at least for some patients, an inherited susceptibility
interacts with unidentified environmental factor(s) to induce the
disease. Particular genes may also help to determine the severity of the
illness
The
role of nicotine has attracted some publicity, because it has been found
to protect against the inflammation for some patients. This was
discovered by a research team in Cardiff under Professor Rhodes, when
they realised that some patients first experienced Ulcerative Colitis
after giving up smoking. Doctors do not advise these people to take up
smoking again because of the other harmful effects on health, but at
Cardiff they have been undertaking tests to see whether nicotine patches
could be an alternative to the use of steroids. Some early results have
been encouraging, but the idea is not yet sufficiently proven to be
recommended as a normal treatment, and it is likely that this approach
would only benefit some patients
The
possibility that food might be a cause of Ulcerative Colitis has appeal,
but no specific dietary cause has been found. NACC is currently funding
a study in Dundee to test whether a low-sulphur diet might be an
effective treatment, based on earlier research which showed that dietary
sulphate was converted to the potentially damaging sulphide by bacteria
in the colon
Click here for an overview of research into IBD funded by NACC.
In March 2004, NACC has funded £320,000 of new
research into Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis. Since 1984,
members have raised over £3 million and more than 100 research awards
have been made to hospitals and universities throughout the United
Kingdom. |
