The Colitist

6) These SCFAs, w/ butyrate appearing to have the greatest potential role in immunity due to its palliative effect in inflammatory bowel diseases. In part this appears due to the improved quality of the epithelial barrier & diminished bacterial translocation and immune activation

Why does epithelial dysfunction persist in IBD even after inflammation resolves? We show intestinal stem cells retain a stable epigenetic memory of prior inflammation, altering future behavior. The epithelium remembers. cmghjournal.org/article/S2352-…

@srmbeauroy @kristin_gi_rd It has already! I haven't consumed blackberries in years...

@kristin_gi_rd @colitist Thank you, I hope it does help others.

This is how you eat organic blueberries, blackberries, & cherries when you keep getting #IBD obstructions. Not as easy as defrosting them, or as satisfying, but cooked, blended, strained, they make a delicious liquid with the inestimable virtue of not getting me hospitalized.

@srmbeauroy I tried it today w/ blackberries. Thanks for the tip. I was too dumb to figure that out on my own.

@colitist The strainer removes them entirely. It's those seeds and the blueberry skins that are the main problem, I think. You miss the texture of the fruit but you still get the polyphenols and anthocyanins and so on.

I now have 3 patients with ulcerative colitis who failed all advanced therapies (including Rinvoq) but avoided colectomy/responded well to CurQD or QingDai with mucosal healing. Like everything else, it doesn’t work for everyone but it’s worth a shot in this kind of patient population. I use it often also before stepping up to advanced therapies in mild to moderate UC.

Epigenetic memory of colitis promotes tumour growth nature.com/articles/s4158…

Chronic inflammation leaves epigenetic scars that increase future cancer risk news-medical.net/news/20260325/…

AI discovers peptide that eases ulcerative colitis symptoms drugtargetreview.com/news/194447/ai…

@srmbeauroy Thanks. I need to try that. I cannot eat the seeds or cherry skins either.

Ref-1 drives ulcerative colitis induced systemic defects in hematopoietic cells nature.com/articles/s4200…

Loss of Pum2 exacerbates colitis by disrupting macrophage–epithelial crosstalk and promoting epithelial necroptosis nature.com/articles/s4142…

'I hid my symptoms out of embarrassment - then needed life-saving surgery' bbc.com/news/articles/…

Antibiotic use has been linked to changes in the gut’s bacterial species that can last for four to eight years go.nature.com/4sXwpIi

@IldikoMe It's also massive wear and tear on us old timers, starting with the prep; After my last one I was wiped out for a week.

I know this is going to be very controversial but we need to consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, colonoscopy prep, which is massively disruptive to the microbiome and significantly increases calprotectin, is itself a risk for, or exacerbates, flares. I have one rule in IBD: never mess with whatever is working.

The Alzheimer's gut-brain link: How butyrate could curb amyloid-β buildup and inflammation medicalxpress.com/news/2026-03-a…

@john_damianosMD All potatoes? E.g. Orange / purple or just white ?

Higher intake of apple, pear, banana, mushrooms, onions, and garlic is associated with ⬇️ risk of Crohn disease. Higher potato intake is associated with ⬆️ risk of ulcerative colitis. 🍎 🍐 🍌 🍄‍🟫 🧅 🧄

Paediatric Bowel Disease Rises Nearly 300% in Recent Decades emjreviews.com/en-us/amj/gast…

@srmbeauroy Another way the ship can become rudderless–when a specialist brings on another specialist who then acts as a consultant for what turns out to be a new primary issue pertinent to their field, but then continues acting as a consultant.

@colitist I agree and the patient is left trying to captain the ship without any training. We try not to founder on the rocks!

An issue I've observed when requiring/seeing multiple specialists for complex issues–there can be a tendency where each is so siloed that there's no captain of ship–feels like my PCP is a traffic controller, making referrals, but not really looking at the big picture.

@srmbeauroy Agree completely.