Johns Hopkins Reports More Children Have Inflammatory Bowel Disease - AGE OF AUTISM

Johns Hopkins Reports More Children Have Inflammatory Bowel Disease - AGE OF AUTISM

From Johns Hopkins University. We know a population that suffers from severe GI problems still mislabeled "autistic behavior." And we know a few brave doctors trying to help.

March 28, 2011
-Delays in Diagnosis Common

Once a medical rarity in children, inflammatory bowel disease today is increasingly common in kids, but many of them may not be diagnosed in a timely manner, according to experts from the Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center at Johns Hopkins Children’s.

Gastroenterologists there say that many of the hundreds of children they see were referred to them only after months of repeated visits to their primary-care physicians for symptoms mistakenly attributed to common GI ailments like viral gastritis.

“Inflammatory bowel disease is still considered an adult condition and is rarely on pediatricians’ radars,” says Maria Oliva-Hemker, M.D., chief of the Gastroenterology & Nutrition division at Hopkins Children’s and director of the comprehensive IBD center there. “Fifty years ago, IBD was almost exclusively diagnosed in adults. These days, treating children with IBD is business as usual in our clinics.”