{"id":880650,"date":"2026-10-13T09:02:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T09:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/880650\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T09:02:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T09:02:14","slug":"why-does-ibd-keep-flaring-up-scientists-found-a-clue-in-the-gut-lining-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/880650\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Does IBD Keep Flaring Up? Scientists Found a Clue in The Gut Lining : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

For people with inflammatory bowel disease, feeling better on treatment doesn’t always mean a permanent improvement \u2013 the disease can flare again.<\/p>\n

A study suggests part of the explanation may lie in intestinal cells that stay fragile even when symptoms such as abdominal pain and diarrhea are controlled.<\/p>\n

Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis are the main forms of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Both involve chronic inflammation of the digestive tract. <\/p>\n

Treatment can bring IBD into remission, a period when its activity subsides, but another flare can follow.<\/p>\n

\"CrohnA form of inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn’s disease is an inflammation of the intestinal wall. (CDC<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Researchers found signs of abnormal cell death in gut tissue even from patients whose disease was under control.<\/p>\n

“The bowel may still carry a vulnerability that is not apparent from symptoms alone,” gastroenterologist Britt Christensen, head of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Unit at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, told ScienceAlert.<\/p>\n

The study, published in Science<\/a>, examined more than 900 intestinal biopsies, small tissue samples, from 80 people with and without IBD. Most patients with IBD had inactive or mildly active disease.<\/p>\n

Led by researchers at Australia’s Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, the team investigated the intestinal lining: a protective layer that constantly rebuilds itself.<\/p>\n

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Normally, controlled cell death removes unwanted or damaged cells, while stem cells<\/a> produce replacements. <\/p>\n

The researchers found that inflammation could change how intestinal cells behave, making them more vulnerable to abnormal death signals.<\/p>\n

Some signals were detectable even in tissue without obvious inflammation, hinting that problems could persist beneath an apparently healthy surface.<\/p>\n

“This suggests that clinical remission does not always mean the underlying biology has returned to normal,” Christensen explained.<\/p>\n

\"AA spatial transcriptomics map of human intestinal tissue. (Pang and Al-Ani et al., Science 2026)<\/p>\n

To investigate further, the researchers grew miniature intestinal tissues from human samples. These laboratory models, called organoids<\/a>, let scientists examine how cells respond to inflammation. Other researchers have used human cells to\u00a0recreate features of IBD on a chip<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The experiments revealed an unexpected connection between two ways cells die. Patient tissue showed signals associated with necroptosis, a process that can rupture cells and release contents that promote inflammation.<\/p>\n

But when organoids were exposed to inflammatory signals, their cells died mainly through apoptosis, a more orderly process of cellular dismantling.<\/p>\n

Blocking necroptosis did not prevent cell death under the conditions tested. So drugs targeting a signal seen in diseased tissue may not be enough on their own to protect cells.<\/p>\n

In the lab, deleting specific genes protected particular cell types. Further research is needed to determine whether these mechanisms can be safely targeted in patients.<\/p>\n

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The team examined whether the tissue findings were associated with later flares.<\/p>\n

Of 52 patients with IBD, 30 had follow-up information covering two to three years. Sixteen experienced a flare requiring intensified or changed treatment, while 14 remained stable. Twenty-two were lost to follow-up.<\/p>\n

Those who later relapsed had elevated levels of a cell-death signaling marker compared with people without IBD. However, that comparison doesn’t establish whether the marker can tell who will relapse and who won’t.<\/p>\n

Patients who relapsed also had greater microscopic inflammation initially. Larger studies could potentially establish whether the signals provide useful information beyond existing inflammation measurements.<\/p>\n

“The follow-up findings are promising but preliminary,” Christensen cautioned.<\/p>\n

\"MulticoloredHuman intestinal tissue. (Pang and Al-Ani et al., Science 2026)<\/p>\n

For now, the findings may help explain why the disease keeps coming back, though they aren’t a test doctors can use to predict a flare.<\/p>\n

“Protecting the lining and its ability to regenerate could therefore complement treatments that control inflammation,” Christensen said.<\/p>\n

But cell-death pathways also serve essential functions, including removing damaged or potentially cancerous cells.<\/p>\n

“We have not shown that blocking these mechanisms safely prevents flares in patients,” Christensen said.<\/p>\n

The longer-term goal is what she calls “molecular healing”: addressing the cellular problems that persist beneath apparent recovery. Whether that can keep patients well for longer is yet to be tested.<\/p>\n

The research has been published in Science<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article was fact-checked by Rebecca Dyer<\/a> and edited by Rebecca Dyer<\/a>. While we pride ourselves on our process, we are only human. If you spot a mistake, please let us know<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For people with inflammatory bowel disease, feeling better on treatment doesn’t always mean a permanent improvement \u2013 the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":880651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[97,1352],"class_list":["post-880650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-msft-content"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}