This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Bacteria linked to Crohn’s disease found in shower, river water aerosols
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Water aerosols from showers and rivers could be a human exposure route for a bacterial pathogen strongly associated with Crohn’s disease, according to recent study data.
“Virtually all Crohn’s patients carry Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP), and we have shown for the first time that humans can be exposed to [MAP] via aerosols from rivers and domestic showers,” Roger W. Pickup, BsC, PhD, division of biomedical and life sciences, Lancaster University, told Healio.com/Gastroenterology. “Aerosols in the River Taff may influence the significant association of human Crohn’s disease (CD) clusters in Cardiff, Wales, with the river.”
Pickup and colleagues tested for the presence of MAP in five aerosol samples from above the River Taff and 30 domestic shower samples from 23 homes across four U.K. counties. They used a high volume impaction sampler (HVIS) to obtain the aerosolized river water samples between November 2010 and September 2011, and collected biofilm samples from shower tubes and heads. Microbial analysis was performed by epifluorescence microscopy, bacterial cultures and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay.
MAP were detected in one of the five river samples and in three of the 30 shower samples and were present in all regions tested.
“Both river aerosol and shower unit results … are consistent with inhalation as a probable exposure route of [MAP],” the researchers concluded. “Although MAP is difficult to detect and even more difficult to culture, recent data have shown it to be significantly associated with [CD] and, if appropriate culture and PCR tests are done correctly, that almost everyone with [CD] is found to be infected with this chronic enteric pathogen.”
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts