Childhood antibiotics as a risk factor for Crohn's disease: The ENIGMA International Cohort Study

Abstract

She is a scientific co-founder of GenieBiome limited and holds provisional patents for Therapeutic and Diagnostic Use of Bacteria in COVID-19 Infection, Therapeutic and Prophylactic Use of Microorganisms and Fecal Virome and Fecal Fungome and Therapeutic Efficacy of Fecal Microbiota Transplantation in recurrent clos difficile infections. Other authors have no conflicts of interests to declare.Author contribution: Joyce W Y Mak and Jessica Y L Ching had full access to all of the data in the study and take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. All authors were responsible for the study concept and design.

Helminth Lessons in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD)

“…Retrospective analyses have revealed an association between early childhood antibiotic use and IBD development [47,48]. This latter finding was recently verified by a case-control study [49]. Antibiotics alter the composition of intestinal microbiota, which appears critical for a healthy immune system development in early life according to recent and well-designed mechanistic studies [50][51][52].…”

“…In accordance with the hygiene hypothesis, evolutionary mismatches explain that certain traits which were once beneficial for survival become maladaptive in an altered environment. In the case of the aforementioned de-worming trials, the use of antihelminthics may predispose to aberrant immune reactivity ( Table 1 ) in an analogous fashion to predisposition to immune disorders after excessive antibiotic use during childhood [ 49 ].…”

Prevention and reversal of chronic diseases: A Protocol

“…This structure is similar to the impacts from other chronic disease CFs. Some of the foundational CFs that are pervasive not only to the specific chronic diseases examined, but to many others as well, include: • Dietary -high fat diet 28,29 , high salt diet 30,31 , refined carbohydrates 32,33 , advanced glycation end products 34,35 , high cholesterol diet 36,37 , and vitamin deficiency [38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45] ; • Substance abuse -smoking 46,47 , and alcohol 48,49 ; • Iatrogenic -antibiotics [50][51][52] , anesthetics 53,54 , antipsychotics 55,56 , radiotherapy 57,58 ; and • Occupational/environmental -solvents [59][60][61] , endocrine disruptors 62,63 , pollutants/pollution [64][65][66] , pesticides [67][68][69][70] , heavy metals [71][72][73]…”

Does the road to primary prevention of inflammatory bowel disease start from childhood?

“…16 Mak et al have made a welcome addition to the existing, and should be congratulated for their efforts. 17 The ENIGMA (Eastern Inflammatory Bowel Disease Gut Microbiota), a case-control observational study, evaluated the environmental factors in four different cohorts: three Chinese economies-Hong Kong (developed economy China), Guangzhou (urban China), Kunming (rural China), and Australia, and compared these risk factors between patients with Crohn's disease (CD), their first degree relatives (FDRs), household members (HMs), and unrelated healthy controls (HCs), through a linguistically and culturally validated ENIGMA Environmental questionnaire (EEQ). The study was unique in terms of including a genetically (FDRs) and environmentally (HMs) comparable cohort, in addition to unrelated HCs, which powered the study to dissect the environmental influences in the background of (epi)genetic similarity.…”