406 women who indicated that they had IBD were mailed questionnaires; 303 women responded. The questionnaire was to collect subjects for the control group. The women with IBD were asked to record the name, race, and age of their closet female neighbor. Of the 303 returned questionnaires from the women with IBD, 244 of those neighbors agreed to part take in the control group.
Women who experienced symptoms for CD and used oral contraceptives were more prone to actually developing the dieasse, especially if they were smokers. Women who experienced symptoms for UC were not at a higher risk for the development of the disease when using oral contraceptives.
Oral Contraceptive Use and the Risk of Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Robert S. Sandler, John I. Wurzelmann and Cynthia M. Lyles
Epidemiology , Vol. 3, No. 4 (Jul., 1992), pp. 374-378
I was curious to know what the link between oral contraceptives and IBD were, so I did a little more research. Obviously when a woman uses oral contraceptives, her menstrual cycle is affected.
The link that I have stumbled upon is prostaglandins. As we have discussed in class, prostaglandins are essential components of the inflammatory process in IBD. It causes an increase contractiblity of the GI smooth muscle which causes diarrhea and abdominal pain. This is also similar during menstruation. Contraction of the uterine smooth muscle is also caused by the release of prostaglandins. The similar effects may cause the symptoms of IBD and menstruation to overlap.
As I read your post, I was interested in if you could findn any physiological reason behind why there might be a different risk of getting either CD or UC when using the oral contraceptive.
ReplyDeleteAlso, most of the female smokers can be more prone to the IBD when using the oral contraceptive according to the paper you posted. How can smoking makes the inflamatory disease symtomps worse? Maybe, the substance in the cigaratte stimulates more inflammatory factors?