Reply #14: As I was a parasitologist I am aware of the too clean hypothesis

[HereSince1628]

which in very short term suggests that Crohn's suffers have a superdeveloped immune response which, because we live in a "clean environment" is frustrated by a lack of conventional targets and tends to overreact to provocations.

In other words...the hypothesis suggests we take out our frustrations on ourselves. Which is probably true on many levels, whether or not it is true for Crohn's.

My career once took me into all sorts of geopgraphic locations, sometimes with helminthic and protozoal repurcussions. Frankly I never noticed any difference in my "problem."

The one thing my travels taught me is that overdoing alcohol is really a bad idea...a 4th of July in Russia above the Arctic Circle drinking peppered vodka left me, after three days, with a heightened sense of balance (to keep from falling into the latrine) and using pages of my Tom Clancy novel (Clear and Present Danger!!!) as t-paper.