In this blog, I want to discuss Fucoidan and Crohn’s disease. It is important to know because many people have had Crohn’s disease, especially the younger generation.

Crohn’s disease is one of the inflammatory bowel diseases, and it is a chronic disease. The trigger or cause of this disease is yet unknown. However, it causes erosion and ulcers mainly due to the digestive tract’s inflammation, such as the small intestine and large intestine. The main symptoms include abdominal pain, diarrhea, bloody stools, fever, pain, swelling near the anus, and weight loss. Additionally, various complications may occur.

Crohn’s disease’s intestinal complications include stricture perforation (stenosis, fistula), abscess, and rarely large amounts of bleeding; cancer may also have seen small intestine cancer, colon, and anal cancer. Extraintestinal complications include mucocutaneous complications such as aphthous stomatitis, nodular erythema, and necrotizing pyoderma. Bone and joint system complications include ankylosing spondylitis, polyarthritis, osteoporosis, and other hepato-biliary-pancreatic lesions such as gallstones, renal stones, and eye lesions.

I strongly believe that it is beneficial and essential to ease inflammation of the bowel by using Fucoidan.  

According to Yu Wang et al., “Biological Activities of Fucoidan and the Factors Mediating Its Therapeutic Effect: A Review of Recent Studies,” Fucoidan can reduce colonic mucosal damage and crypt destruction in mice treated with sodium dextran sulfate to treat chronic colitis.

Fucoidan from Cladosiphon okamuranus Tokida improved chronic colitis by down-regulating the inflammatory cytokine IL-6 in colonic epithelial cells of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) mice. Fucoidan has been proven to benefit inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) by upregulating the expression of the tight junction protein claudin-1 and protecting epithelial barrier function from oxidative damage. According to Tagami et al., A co-culture system of intestinal epithelial Caco-2 cells (apical side) and macrophage RAW264.7 cells (basal side) was established to simulate intestinal inflammation in vivo. They found that brown algae-derived Fucoidan could suppress IL-8 gene expression in this co-culture system. *Interleukin 8 (IL-8) is an inflammatory cytokine that promotes, proliferates, and promotes angiogenesis.