Two Seperate Risks Might Operate Similarly

In the article "Smoking and Sugar Intake are Separate but Interactive Risk Factors in Crohn's Disease," observations were made on individuals who subjected themselves to known risks of Crohn's disease. The paper questions whether smoking and additional processed sugar intake affect each other as risks for Crohn's disease. For many diseases such as the metabolic syndrome which was brought up earlier this year, risk factors can build additively or exponentially to greatly increase chances of developing a chronic disease. This study showed that these two risk factors do not additively increase risk for IBD. The suggestion is that these two risks might operate at the same root cause and activate the same pathway for disease development. This is a significant finding because if the mechanism can be traced using smoking of sugar intake, then perhaps a root cause for the disease can be treated and not just one possible risk factor. By searching for a multifunctional pathway, this disease would be easier to treat because eliminating every possible risk which would be unfavorable for the patient, perhaps an easier method which could simultaneously fix many areas can be discovered. Presently, one of the major areas of concern involving treating IBD is localizing it to affected areas only.