Milk bug may cause Crohn's disease
Bacteria also found in patients with irritable bowel syndrome
Updated: 6:04 p.m. ET Oct. 15, 2003LONDON - British scientists said on
Wednesday they had found a link between a common bowel disorder and a
type of bacteria that can be passed to humans in milk.

advertisement

John Hermon-Taylor and his team at St. George's Hospital Medical
School in London said they had detected Mycobacterium avium
paratuberculosis bacteria in 92 percent of patients with Crohn's
disease, but in only 26 percent of patients in a control group.

"The rate of detection of MAP in individuals with Crohn's disease is
highly significant and implicates this pathogen in disease causation,"
they said in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology.

"The problems caused by the MAP bug are a public health tragedy," said
Hermon-Taylor, who has sent a copy of the paper to Britain's Chief
Medical Officer Liam Donaldson.

Crohn's disease causes inflammation of the intestine and symptoms
include diarrhea, pain, weight loss and tiredness. About 100,000
people in Britain alone are affected, with about 5,000 new cases
reported every year.

The study was backed by the medical charity Action Research, which
said previous findings showed MAP is present in two percent of retail
pasteurized milk cartons.

"The discovery that the MAP bug is present in the vast majority of
Crohn's sufferers means it is almost certainly causing the intestinal
inflammation," it said in a statement.

"Action Research does not recommend that anyone stops drinking milk.
However, for those individuals with Crohn's disease or their close
relatives who may feel particularly at risk, it may be sensible to
start drinking UHT milk.

"As UHT involves higher pasteurization temperatures, it is probable
that MAP is destroyed," it said.

It called for Crohn's to be made a reportable disease, for more
stringent milk pasteurization, for tests for MAP in dairy herds, and
procedures for reducing MAP infection on farms.

Hermon-Taylor said an unexpected finding of the research showed that
patients suffering from irritable bowel syndrome may also be infected
with MAP.

"In animals, MAP inflames the nerves of the gut," he said. "Recent
work from Sweden shows that people with IBS also have inflamed gut
nerves. There is a real chance that the MAP bug may be inflaming
people's gut nerves and causing IBS."

Copyright 2004 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or
redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the
prior written consent of Reuters.