Causes and Risk Factors of Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which consists of ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, and indeterminate colitis, causes inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract that results in abdominal pain, diarrhea, and bloody or mucousy stools.

IBD is considered an "idiopathic" disease or a disease with an unknown cause. However, there are several theories about the origins of IBD, as well as the conditions that may contribute to its development.

IBD is frequently called autoimmune disease, a disease that is triggered by the immune system, but it is more accurate to say that it is an immune-mediated response. Seasonal flare-ups—during the spring or autumn—sometimes occur in people with IBD.

Allergic Response

One theory is that this is an IgE-mediated allergic response. The allergic response sets off a chain of events resulting in an excess of eosinophils (cells that try to fight the allergic response) in the body.

These eosinophils release four toxic compounds, three of which are found in statistically significant amounts in the stool of IBD patients. This leads some researchers to conclude that an allergic response may have a role in the development of IBD.

Cytokines

Another strong area of research is the role that cytokines play in the development of IBD. Cells called tumor necrosis factor (TNF, or also sometimes called tumor necrosis factor-alpha) are responsible for regulating the immune response, among other functions.

Several anti-TNF drugs (commonly called biologics) have been developed to treat IBD. The success of these medications lends some weight behind the idea that TNF plays some role in the cause of IBD or the inflammation associated with IBD flare-ups.

Years ago, it was thought that IBD might run in families, but the link seemed tenuous because it was not a direct parent-to-child situation, as is the case with some inherited conditions.

With the discovery of hundreds of genes that may be associated with IBD, it has become apparent that there is a hereditary component to IBD. First-degree relatives of people who have IBD are significantly more likely to also have the disease.

While researchers have learned a lot about the genes that may be associated with IBD, it's the trigger part that is difficult to pin down. It's now also thought that there could be hundreds of different types of IBD, although we still segment them into the 3 categories in order to treat them with medications.

There could, in fact, also be hundreds or thousands of triggers. Some research has pointed at a few possibilities for the reason some people who have IBD genes develop IBD and other people do not.

So while IBD clearly does run in families, it is not the only factor to be taken into consideration when looking at the possible causes of IBD. There has to be something else that's making some people with the same genes develop IBD, while others do not.

There are some clear trends in the epidemiology of IBD that may point to one or more environmental causes.

IBD tends to occur most often in developed countries and amongst those with higher socioeconomic status. IBD also tends to occur more often in the urban areas of developed countries.

These factors have led researchers to think that there may be some connection between IBD and the lifestyles or environment of people living in developed countries, although no one knows yet what this could be.

A Word From Verywell

We don't know exactly what causes IBD, but we do know that it's not caused by diet or stress. There is clearly a genetic component that runs in families, but it's that second part, something around us that's "triggering" the genes that's proving difficult to find.

The good news is that we know so much more now about IBD than we did even just a decade ago. More research is being done, and scientists are getting closer and closer to understanding how we can treat these diseases more effectively and prevent them in future generations.