Basic Information on your Microbiome and Ankylosing Spondylitis

Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of The Ankylosing Spondylitis Podcast. I hope this show finds everybody doing well. In today's show, I want to look at the relationship between your microbiome and Ankylosing Spondylitis. The reason for this came about from looking at a few items online and in some of the forums on Facebook. I was seeing one particular thread I believe an example that there was a number of people giving definitive, this is how I got Ankylosing Spondylitis. This caused my Ankylosing Spondylitis and that might have triggered a flare that brought the Ankylosing Spondylitis to your attention, or made you notice some of the symptoms that made you look further into what was causing them. But at this time, there really is nothing that I've ever found that says the doctors can pinpoint to this one exact reason as to why you got Ankylosing Spondylitis. No, there are some different contributing factors and there are some items that again, may have happened that triggered the domino to happen and and Ankylosing Spondylitis to finally come to life. There's nothing that at this time, they know, this is what exactly triggered anybody's Ankylosing Spondylitis. And that's what's really frustrating for a lot of us with the disease, is that we all present differently. We all get different symptoms, different reactions to medications. And if you listen to my episode a few back with Dr. Fox (Episode 42), he said there are some tests coming down the road that could help to better pinpoint which biologics you'll respond to better versus others. And that way, it's not such a guessing game like there is now with biologics where it's like, well take Enbrel if it doesn't work take Humira, if it doesn't work, take this one. It might take you four, five, or six until you find one that works. And if they have a way to narrow that down to one or two, that in of itself would be a great start to treating Ankylosing Spondylitis. The real big breakthrough is going to come when they can figure out what underlying symptoms make you susceptible to having it at some point in the future. One of those things is the gene, HLA-B27. Many people have that gene and it doesn't mean that if you have it, you will develop Ankylosing Spondylitis. Because there's people that don't have it, that develop Ankylosing Spondylitis. So it's just one of those factors to look at.

So I happened to be looking around on ankylosingspondylitis.net, which is a fantastic resource, that if you're not using it you should be. People with Ankylosing Spondylitis write many of the articles and the editorial team writes many. I encourage you to head over, it's just a fantastic resource. And it got me thinking, I found this article, which is where I tell the show about the relationship between the microbiome and Ankylosing Spondylitis. And I thought it was really interesting. I've also saw a lot of people coming onto the forum saying, I'm brand new. I need to learn. Where do I start? What do I do? So this is something that might be a good spot to start to think about as you try to develop your game plan for dealing with Ankylosing Spondylitis. What we know is that about 40 years ago, researchers found out that people with HLA-B27 are much more likely to get Ankylosing Spondylitis.

HLA-B27 is a genetic trait associated with the immune system and the inflammatory conditions like Ankylosing Spondylitis. Well, scientists still don't know why. There is connection between Ankylosing Spondylitis and HLA-B27. They continue to study that relationship, and the potential link to help find further treatments for the condition of, of ALS and, and potentially other items. So, one of the areas that is being researched and I want to look at some more, and this is the microbiome. What is the microbiome? Well, all of us have trillions of bacteria living, you know, in us and on us on our bodies, you know, in our bodies, and this collection of bacteria is called your...