What Is Crohn’s Disease?
Crohn’s disease is an autoimmune disorder that affects one’s entire gastrointestinal tract (GI). Crohn’s disease can be quite chronic and because it is an inflammatory condition, it tends to lead to more severe problems and complications in the body.
Crohn’s disease is a type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). These are group of intestinal disorders that cause inflammation of the digestive tract. The most notable of these conditions include ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. In the United States, about 1 to 1.3 million people have IBD, and it’s believed that roughly 780,000 Americans live with Crohn’s.
Ulcerative colitis [1] and Crohn’s disease are quite different even though they both involve inflammation, the key difference between the two is that ulcerative colitis involves only the colon, while Crohn’s involves the entire digestive tract, from the mouth all the way to the anus, leaving people with Crohn’s susceptible to battling far more diverse physical and emotional complications.