Heart Drugs May Help People With Bowel Disorders

Main Category: GastroIntestinal / Gastroenterology
Also Included In: Irritable-Bowel Syndrome
Article Date: 07 Jul 2007 - 1:00 PDT

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Statin drugs which are widely prescribed to prevent heart disease may emerge as a future treatment for Crohn's disease, an inflammatory bowel condition, a scientist said last Tuesday.

Surgical research fellow Dr. John Burke was addressing the Association of Coloproctology meeting in Glagow about research which is reinforcing the idea that statins are becoming 'the aspirin of the 21st Century'. Just as aspirin has been found to be effective in the treatment of many different conditions, from heart disease and strokes to rheumatic disease, so have statins.

As well as reducing cholesterol and preventing arteries from clogging up, statins have been found to lower blood pressure and reduce the risk of strokes. Research also suggests that statins may help to soothe the pain of rheumatoid arthritis, and prevent dementia and donor tissue rejection in kidney transplant patients.

Dr Burke, of the Conway Institute, University College Dublin, said his research on Crohn's disease was carried out after statins had been shown to help people with fibrotic disease in other organs. Fibrosis occurs when the body's natural healing processes is disturbed, creating excessive scar tissue. It is a key component of diseases affecting millions of people worldwide. These include diabetes, congestive heart failure, respiratory and kidney failure and age-related mascular degeneration, one of the leading causes of blindness.

"People with diabetes can develop fibrotic disease in their kidneys, but if they're taking statins, their condition tend to improve," said Dr. Burke. "We reasoned the same may be true in the gut in the treatment of Crohn's disease.

"We isolated cells from the gut and found that statins prevent them from becoming activated and fibrotic. We showed that statins do this by preventing growth factors present in the gut in Crohn's disease from changing the gene expression of these cells. This resulted in the prevention of stricture formation, a process leading to obstruction of the gut which is the most common reason why someone with Crohn's disease will require surgery. At present there are no effective treatments to prevent it occurring".

He stressed that this exciting research was only the first step. The next one will involve further laboratory work to replicate the results of this preliminary research.

The Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland at The Royal College of Surgeons of England
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