Growing up with a dog can be good for your intestinal health, research shows

Dog lovers can attest to the many benefits that come with having a canine companion, but improved gut health is probably not one of them.

That could be about to change after research from Sinai Health and the University of Toronto showing that exposure to dogs during childhood is linked to beneficial changes in gut bacteria, intestinal permeability and blood biomarkers.

The study, published in Clinical gastroenterology and hepatologyResearch has shown that living with a dog between the ages of 5 and 15 is associated with a healthier gut microbiome and a reduced risk of developing Crohn’s disease.

The research sheds new light on how environmental factors influence the onset of Crohn’s disease – an inflammatory bowel disease – and could inform future prevention strategies.

For the study, researchers led by Kenneth Croitoru and Williams Turpin of Mount Sinai Hospital’s Center for Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) examined how dozens of environmental factors influence the likelihood of developing Crohn’s disease as part of their overarching effort to identify at-risk groups to be able to predict. and, if necessary, early intervention.

“The idea behind predicting someone’s disease risk is that you can then also begin to understand who you would want to do something to prevent disease,” says Croitoru, a physician-scientist at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute (LTRI), part of Sinai Health, and professor of medicine and immunology at U of T’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine.

Croitoru notes that the research does not reveal why living with a dog makes one less susceptible to Crohn’s disease. “We have established links between environmental factors and Crohn’s disease and are now trying to understand how these environmental factors influence the onset of the disease,” says Croitoru, who is also a gastroenterologist at Mount Sinai Hospital.

The study also found that living with a large family in the first year of life reduces the risk of developing Crohn’s. It was also found that people who lived with a bird at the time of the study were more likely to develop the disease.

Crohn’s disease is caused by inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract and can have far-reaching effects on overall health and well-being. The incidence among children under 10 years of age has doubled since 1995, while the annual cost of inflammatory bowel disease to Canada is estimated at $5.4 billion per year, according to Crohn’s and Colitis Canada, a national non-profit organization.

The likelihood of developing Crohn’s disease is strongly influenced by genetics, but the environment also plays a role, says Croitoru, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases. Although we cannot change our genes, we can, for example, change our environment and diet to potentially prevent the disease from occurring.

These findings come from the Genetic, Environmental and Mbiotic (GEM) Project, the largest study of its kind seeking to identify potential triggers of Crohn’s disease.

Coordinated at Mount Sinai Hospital since 2008, the GEM project collects comprehensive medical and lifestyle data from more than 5,000 healthy first-degree relatives of people with Crohn’s disease from around the world, including Australia, Canada, Israel and New York. -Zealand. , Great Britain and the US

In the fifteen years since the study began, more than 120 people have developed the disease. “By understanding what is different about those who develop the disease, we should be able to predict who is at risk,” Croitoru says.

Previously, the group identified differences in the microbiome and other biomarkers in people who develop Crohn’s disease and those who do not.

In another recent report published in GastroenterologySun-Ho Lee, a physician-scientist at Mount Sinai Hospital’s IBD Center and assistant professor at the Institute of Medical Science at Temerty Medicine, used available data and machine learning to develop an “integrative risk score” that predicts the risk of Crohn’s disease with a high degree of accuracy.

But risk prediction is only the first step, says Croitoru, whose ultimate goal is to be able to intervene and prevent the disease from developing.

He and his team are now conducting research to devise and test strategies for prevention, such as adding supplements to the diet to promote a healthy microbiome.

“By integrating genetic, environmental and microbial data, Dr. Croitoru and colleagues are paving the way for personalized intervention strategies that could significantly reduce the incidence of Crohn’s disease,” said Anne-Claude Gingras, LTRI Director and Deputy president of research. at Sinai Health.