/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2945487/ - Was posted on the Human Para site as the study was mentioned in the recent RedHill Biopharma webinar on the triple ABX study that just finished up.
It's a little old (2010) but I posted it here because they also tested people with UC along with healthy controls. I know some with UC are at least a little curious on this front if nothing else.
One UC patient was positive for viable MAP in their blood by culture after 18 months of incubation. The rest were negative. But everyone was positive (100% of Crohn's, UC and Healthy patients) for MAP DNA in their blood.
100% of the Crohn's patients actually grew viable cell wall deficient forms of MAP after 18 months incubation. This is the significant difference between the groups.
Makes me wonder if they will follow up with a test on tissue for both UC and Crohn's with Active Disease, not in remission.
I also know that with the one lab that tested me they always had similar/same results as the study above. The difference between those in remission like myself and those with active disease seems to be the rate of replication (growth) of MAP from others that I have compared results with who were in highly active disease states. Bu that is all very informal.
The lab's hypothesis is that during active replication they secrete a biofilm matrix into the blood to capture nutrients and protect themselves and it is this biofilm that Crohn's patients immune systems reacts to. They mentioned an idea that on the blood side, antigens in the secreted biofilm by actively replicating non-cell wall MAP might be a trigger to cause a site specific immune reaction at the intestinal infection/colonization site(s) that is also releasing these antigens/biofilm. And this line of thinking to them also might apply to UC minus the blood side and result in a slightly different immune response. But who knows.
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I have Crohn's-Colitis and I have had my blood samples tested twice now by two separate labs, and both grew the forms of MAP they speak of in the above study after a period of time. One sent me actual images of the bacteria in my blood and one lab wrote to me and said my sample was selected for DNA analysis because it showed signs of replicating like traditional cell wall forms and they were really interested in it (lucky me). Have not heard back on the results of that yet though.
Anyway. Was just an interesting small study and more so result for both forms of IBD.