Everyday Health: Is There a Link Between IBD and MS?
Everyday Health recently interviewed gastroenterologist Gil Melmed, MD, director of Inflammatory Bowel Disease Clinical Research at Cedars-Sinai, about the potential link between multiple sclerosis (MS) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
Both MS and IBD, which includes Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, are inflammatory diseases that share several risk factors and overlapping gastrointestinal symptoms. People with one of the conditions also have a higher risk of developing the other, but experts are unsure exactly how the two are linked.
In fact, certain medications can be used to treat both conditions, Melmed told Everyday Health.
“We don’t know how to predict who with IBD is going to get MS or vice versa, but it’s something doctors need to think about when we’re prescribing medications or treatments,” he said. “For example, there’s a drug called natalizumab that’s approved for both MS and [Crohn’s disease], and a newer drug called ozanimod that’s approved for MS and [ulcerative colitis]. So, in instances where the two conditions overlap, those might be drugs to consider.”
Melmed told Everyday Health that IBD is an immune-mediated disease, meaning the body attacks healthy cells.
“In IBD, the body is not attacking itself per se, but the immune system is being triggered by bacteria commonly found in the gut and going into overdrive,” Melmed said.
He told Everyday Health that people who have IBD or MS don’t need to be tested for the other condition unless they have symptoms of both.
“It’s not an easy, clear-cut diagnosis in someone who isn’t symptomatic, so it isn’t feasible to do MRI scans for MS in everyone with IBD,” he said.
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