Ulcerative colitis is an inflammatory disease of the digestive tract.
The immune system progressively affects the large intestine from its portion closest to the anus, the rectum, to its beginning, the cecum. The rest of the digestive tract is not affected in ulcerative colitis, unlike in Crohn’s disease. Although ulcerative colitis mainly affects the large intestine, the disease can compromise many other parts of the body, making it more difficult to control.
The causes of ulcerative colitis are currently unclear. A relationship has been found with genes on chromosome 6 that are responsible for the formation of the immune system. But being born with this genetic predisposition is not enough to develop the disease, there must be something that starts it. During the last years an attempt has been made to relate ulcerative colitis to several environmental factors, here some of them:
- Allergies.
- Stress.
- Infections
- Environmental pollution.
The most frequent symptoms presented in those suffering from the disease are:
- Anemia.
- Fever.
- Severe fatigue.
- Wheightloss.
- Loss of appetite.
- Rectal hemorrhage.
- Skin sores.
- Joint pain.
- Growth problems in children.
- Diarrhea.
- Abdominal pain.
Doctors use blood tests, stool tests, colonoscopy and imaging tests to diagnose it.
The prognosis of ulcerative colitis has improved a lot in recent years thanks to the discovery of new drugs and it is hoped that in the future it can be controlled even better.
The monitoring of this disease is of vital importance to achieve a good quality of life between the outbreaks of this disease and when there is symptomatology.
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