Neighbor News
Crohn's disease and Parkinson's are related
Genomewide association studies have found an association between LRRK2 and Crohn's disease as well as with Parkinson's disease
Inflammed intestines can allow inflammatory substances to travel to the brain via the vagus nerve and can introduce diseases such as Crohn's disease and Parkinson.
There are also extraintestinal manifestations of Crohn’s disease, some of which may be debilitating. These include arthritis, inflammation of the eye that can impair vision, skin diseases that vary from mild (erythema nodosum) to severe (pyoderma gangrenosum) gallstones, and loss of bone due to nutritional deficiencies. Most of these manifestations are believed to be due to inflammation that is occurring outside of the intestine.
The Gly2019Ser mutation is one of a small number of LRRK2 mutations proven to cause Parkinson’s disease. Of these, Gly2019Ser is the most common in the Western World, accounting for ~2% of all Parkinson’s disease cases in North American Caucasians. This mutation is enriched in certain populations, being found in approximately 20% of all Ashkenazi Jewish Parkinson’s disease patients and in approximately 40% of all Parkinson’s disease patients of North African Berber Arab ancestry.[citation needed]
Unexpectedly, genomewide association studies have found an association between LRRK2 and Crohn’s disease as well as with Parkinson’s disease, suggesting that the two diseases share common pathways.