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The symptoms of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, the two main forms of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), can be severe and lifelong. And the condition is becoming increasingly common worldwide.
Many people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) also have mental health issues. Eva Szigethy, a psychiatrist at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, studies how cognitive therapy can help people with gastrointestinal problems. She spoke to Nature about the relationship between mental health and IBD.
Helminths are worms that can live in the human intestine. Joel Weinstock, a gastroenterologist at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, studies how they affect inflammation and the body's immune response. He spoke to Nature about how helminths might lead to treatments for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
Gene exploration is providing unexpected insights into inflammatory bowel disease, and getting scientists closer to finding treatments that target the biological mechanisms.
Transplants of faecal matter have done wonders for the treatment of certain gastrointestinal infections. Will they ever work for inflammatory bowel disease?
For centuries, scientists have been captivated by the phenomenal feats of regeneration found in nature. Despite decades of research, attempts to replace or repair parts of the human body have met with only modest success. Fresh understanding of organ formation coupled with new technologies may help to unlock long-sought cures.
Adult stem cells have become a regulatory battleground as clinicians, scientists and ethicists debate whether the road to the clinic should be shorter.
Dietary changes may be able to alleviate the symptoms of multiple sclerosis, but testing the effects of diet will need a different protocol to the one used for drugs.