Inflammatory bowel disease: Traditional knowledge holds the seeds for the future

Core Tip

Core tip: The inflammatory diseases of the gut (inflammatory bowel disease) continue to both constitute a medical challenge, and a formidable intellectual stimulus. The latter statement is based on the accumulating evidence that the IBDS are indeed syndromes whereby a few poorly penetrating polymorphic genes can affect at once the inflammatory balance in the barrier systems of the gut, the skin, and the airways. The former statement reflects the very fact that, though described in the 19^th century, IBD continues to defeat our struggle to cure it, invading yet the hitherto unaffected landscapes of the Eastern World, almost as it was a response to our efforts. We deem that the address of the initiating factors, rather than the downstream phenomena, may be a strategy to wriggle out of the hold-up. The description of interventions such as appendectomy or microbiome replacement, among other options, witnesses our own way to interpret this need in the present editorial.