Introduction:
Inflammatory bowel disease also called the chronic relapsing condition of the gastrointestinal tract has two main forms namely Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Both these conditions are associated with an imbalance in the intestinal microbiota. They cause certain gastrointestinal symptoms like abdominal bleeding, abdominal pain, diarrhea, weight loss, and anemia. At present both these conditions cannot be cured permanently. To overcome this treatment difficulty, the treatment modalities of IBS have progressed enormously and many advances have been developed. These include wearable devices, oxygen chambers, and nanobiotechnology.
What Are the Recent High Tech Devices Developed to Improve the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Care?
Oxygen chambers and wearable devices are the recent tools used regularly to treat and manage inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). These latest advancements have improved the lives of more than three million people in the United States with IBD conditions like Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. These newly revealed researches have brought much optimism to medical professionals.
What Is the Role of Wearable Technology in IBD Management?
Research has been done on the use of wearable technology like Apple watches in the treatment of IBD.
With wearable devices like Apple watches, the markers of the functioning of the nervous system can be collected which will aid in the identification of an IBD flareup.
The flare-ups that happen in an inflammatory bowel disease are unpredictable and common.
The monitoring of this disease depends on the timely assessment of blood, stool, imaging tests, or endoscopy and symptom reporting.
This monitoring does not always reflect the patient's perspective and is invasive and inconvenient.
In such scenarios, studies show that the advances in wearable technology allow continuous, passive monitoring and a noninvasive assessment of physiological metrics like heart rate variability and the measure of small time differences that occur between each heartbeat which is a marker of functioning of the autonomic nervous system function.
Studies have also demonstrated that autonomic function changes pave way for an IBD flareup, can identify inflammatory events like the SARS-CoV-2 infection, and can even predict the transitions of psychological state.
How Are Inflammatory Bowel Disease Flareups Predicted?
Since the symptoms of IBD vary between each individual predicting their flare-ups is quite challenging. The data from the University of California Los Angeles center and other institutions have shown that heart rate variability and stress are associated with increased disease activity, This suggests the possibility of using continuous heart rate monitors for flare-ups in early-stage. This feature is used as it can alert the treatment team to actively address a flare-up while employing modalities to prevent further aggravation of the condition.
An early-stage mild flare-up is easier to control than a severe flare-up. A challenge in these monitors is the discrimination between a false and truly positive. It means that patients experiencing symptoms of flare-ups can also be due to other underlying conditions like infection, food intolerance, and irritable bowel syndrome. Other researchers are skeptical about the functioning of wearable devices. Questions like is the device sensitive enough to pick subtle changes, whether will it pick the change between disease and health, and between remission and clear have been raised.
What Is the Role of Oxygen Therapy in Crohn’s Disease Management?
Researchers have suggested the use of hyperbaric oxygen therapy in the management of Crohn's disease.
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy delivers about 100 percent oxygen in a pressurized chamber, thereby increasing the levels of oxygen and regulating the inflammatory pathways.
Studies have emphasized the clinical safety benefits of adjunctive hyperbaric oxygen therapy in cases of fistulizing Crohn’s disease.
Fistulas occur when the inflammation from Crohn’s disease develops sores or ulcers on the inside of intestinal walls or nearby organs. The collection of pus or abscesses also causes the development of fistulas.
This mostly occurs in the areas between the intestines or other organs like the bladder or vagina. Crohn's disease affects women and also develops fistulas between the vagina and rectum. Around 30 to 50 percent of adults with Crohn’s develop a fistula.
The clinical response is high to the use of hyperbaric oxygen therapy which is promising.
Biologic therapies have always been useful in managing fistulizing Crohn’s disease and using hyperbaric oxygen as a potential primary therapy or supplement would certainly be beneficial.
How Can Nanotechnology Be Used in the Management of Inflammatory Bowel Disease?
Nanotechnology can be used in the diagnosis, drug delivery, and imaging techniques for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
Biosensors that are enabled through nanotechnology enhance the image contrasting chemicals for an appropriate diagnosis.
This promises affordable early detection and a reliable source of confirmation of these diseases.
Engineered nanoparticles can be used in the delivery of active drug agents directly into the area of inflammation.
These include deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), proteins, polypeptides, ribonucleic acid (RNA), vaccines, and even genes.
The targeted drug delivery has major advantages like a low dose requirement due to the guided delivery and the drug also causes very minimal side effects to other organs.
This has made nanomaterials an object of high interest because of its successful optimization of nanoparticles used as a drug delivery system for targeted therapy.
The path of physiology of inflammatory responses that occur in IBD patients has been studied by formulating a carrier for colon delivery. In colon delivery, the application of nanocarriers was seen to improve the bioavailability and reduce systemic complications seen in intravenous and oral administrations.
Nanoparticles can be obtained from natural components or products used in Chinese medicine. They can be available in the forms of capsules, nanoemulsions, lipid-based nanocarriers, nanospheres, nanotubes, and solid lipid microparticles in a drug delivery system.
The use of nanomaterials has also proven beneficial in the diagnosis of IBD. The dextran-coated nanoparticles can be utilized as computer tomography contrast agents for imaging techniques in the GI tract of IBD patients.
This can be very useful as conventional barium-based and iodine-based CT agents were not specific for the inflammatory sites in the GI tract.
Conclusion:
Inflammatory bowel disease is a condition of the gastrointestinal tract characterized by symptoms like abdominal pain, abdominal cramps, recurring diarrhea, extreme tiredness, and weight loss. Currently, there is no cure for inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis. However, with advancements in technology new treatment modalities are developed like the use of nanotechnology, wearable devices, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy. These modalities show slight effectiveness in managing inflammatory bowel disease.
