Crohn’s Disease

Posted on February 5, 2021February 7, 2021 autoimmune conditions

Autoimmune Disease: A Food-based Approach

An estimated 23.5 million people in the United States are living with an autoimmune disease, such as type 1 diabetes, Crohn’s disease, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, or myasthenia gravis. These diseases afflict women more than men and are among the leading causes of death for young and middle-aged women.

Collectively, these diseases are becoming more common around the world. Side effects from some of the medications to treat them can be harsh, so those living with these conditions may look for natural and less invasive ways to manage these diseases. But can the right diet help tame an autoimmune disease?

Learn how nutrition and your diet may help to manage some of these conditions during this free online webinar on Autoimmune Disease: A Food-based Approach.

The expert panel is comprised of:

Leigh Frame, PhD, MHS, is an assistant professor, Department of Clinical Research and Leadership, program director, Integrative Medicine Programs, and executive director, Office of Integrative Medicine and Health. Dr. Frame brings nutrition and immunity together through clinical/translational research. She has used her wide-ranging experience in biomedical research (from wet bench to clinical research) to oversee research programs, including the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) Parkinson’s Disease Biomarkers Program.

Susan LeLacheur, DrPH, MPH, PA-C, BS, is a professor in the Department of Physician Assistant Studies at the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Dr. LeLacheur has more than 35 years of clinical experience in primary care, HIV/AIDS, and infectious disease. She is the section director for the GW PA Program’s Foundations of Medicine Gastroenterology Section. Her ongoing clinical practice at Whitman Walker Health in Washington, D.C. includes both primary and HIV care.

Lara Zakaria, RPh, MS CNS IFMCP, is an Institute for Functional Medicine Certified Practitioner, nutritionist, pharmacist and public health professional based in New York City. She combines evidence-based nutrition and complementary medicine, including positive psychology, to inspire patients to use whole food, herbs and lifestyle modification to optimize their health. Her training in drug-drug and drug-nutrient interactions also gives her a unique perspective on helping patients optimize their medication and supplement programs.

Posted on December 28, 2020December 28, 2020 Gastrointestinal disorders

Multi-population risk scores could improve risk prediction for inflammatory bowel diseases, study finds

Using genetic data from nearly 30,000 people, Mount Sinai researchers have built risk scores from a combination of datasets representing distinct ancestral populations that improve prediction of risk for inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. The study was published in Gastroenterology on December 24.

The researchers found that polygenic risk scores, built using association data from multiple populations in Mount Sinai’s multi-ethnic BioMe Biobank, maximized IBD predictions for every population in the biobank. BioMe is a system-wide effort at Mount Sinai that is revolutionizing diagnosis and classification of diseases according to the patient’s molecular profile. The study showed that risk scores calculated from integrating data significantly improved predictions among individuals with European, Ashkenazi Jewish, and Hispanic ancestry in BioMe, as well as European individuals in the UK Biobank, which contains biological and medical data on half a million people between ages 40 and 69 living in the UK. Predictive power was lower for patients with African ancestry, likely due to substantially smaller reference datasets and substantially greater genetic diversity within populations of African descent.

“The ability to accurately predict genetic disease risk in individuals across ancestries is a critical avenue that may positively affect patient outcomes, as early interventions and even preventive measures are being considered and developed,” says the study’s senior author Judy H. Cho, MD, Dean of Translational Genetics and Director of The Charles Bronfman Institute for Personalized Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “These findings support a need for greater genetic diversity, including more data on African American populations, to enhance disease risk predictions and reduce health disparities for all populations.”

These polygenic risk scores–representing an estimate of overall risk based on the sum of an individual’s many, mostly common, genetic variants–were calculated using IBD association data from cohorts with European, African American, and Ashkenazi Jewish backgrounds. Additionally, researchers assessed rare variants in genes associated with very-early-onset IBD within each population and found that African American carriers of uncommon LRBA variants showed reduced expression of both proteins LRBA and CTLA-4. LRBA deficiency increases susceptibility to IBD and results in lower CTLA-4 expression, which can be reversed with the commonly prescribed antimalarial drug chloroquine. Future studies by the Cho Laboratory will focus on predicting which subsets of patients might benefit from targeting this pathway.

“Since lowered LRBA and CTLA-4 expression can lead to IBD, it’s encouraging that chloroquine is able to partially recover expression,” says the study’s first author Kyle Gettler, PhD, postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.