Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic recurrent gastrointestinal disease. The disease has a relatively higher morbidity in young adults, in whom growth, education, employment and wellbeing all are adversely influenced. A number of guidelines for management of inflammatory bowel disease are available for bringing evidence-based medicine into full play to improve IBD patient care.

Gastrointestinal congenital anomalies are rare entities in an adult patient. Commonly they are located in the upper gastrointestinal system and present with intestinal symptoms such as bleeding, obstruction and/or perforation of the intestine.

A new study by researchers at Hasbro Children’s Hospital, the pediatric division of Rhode Island Hospital, and Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, offers new insight into the role that the cystic fibrosis gene plays in the development of gastrointestinal disease.

“Dragon’s blood” may sound like an exotic ingredient in a witch’s brew or magic potion. But researchers in China are reporting that the material — which is actually a bright red plant sap used for thousands of years in traditional Chinese medicine — contains chemicals that were effective in laboratory experiments in fighting bacteria that cause millions of cases of gastrointestinal disease each year.