Who does Crohn's disease affect?

Answer 1

Crohn's disease is a chronic disorder that causes inflammation of the digestive or gastrointestinal tract. It can affect any area of the GI tract from mouth to anus but most often involves the small intestine and or the colon.

Dr.'s Burrill Crohn , Leon Ginsburg and Gordon Oppenheimer first published a paper on it and a related disease called ulcerative colitis in 1932. Crohn's and Ulcerative Colitis both belong to a larger group of diseases called Inflammatory bowel disease or IBD.

Crohn's disease is marked by an abnormal response to the bodies immune system which normally protects the body from infection. With Crohn's disease the immune system acts inappropriately mistaking microbes and bacteria normally found in the digestive tract and targets them as "invaders" sending white blood cells into the lining of the intestines where they produce chronic inflammation which in turn generates harmful products that lead to ulceration and bowel injury.

Symptoms include but are not exclusive to cramping,bloating,abdominal pain (often severe),diarrhea,rectal bleeding,weight loss and fever and fatigue.

About 20% of people who have Crohn's disease have a parent,sibling or child with the disease. It affects about the same number of women as men and can develop at any age however most are diagnosed between 20 and 30 years old. It can affect any ethnic group but if white and Jewish of European decent you have 4 to 5 times the risk. It occurs most often in people who live in urban areas of industrialized countries and people who live in northern climates have a greater risk than those in the tropics.

Answer 2

it depends... it can affect the small intestine, large intesting, illeum (connecting place for small and large intestine) and the colon

Answer 3

Digestive