Describing his own personal experience, Brian Austin Green highlighted a medical issue that affects scores of people.
The Beverly Hills, 90210 alum, 48, shared in April that he suffers from ulcerative colitis and had recently recovered from a flare-up that lasted more than six weeks. Green later said he lost about 20 pounds as a result.
Ulcerative colitis is a condition in which the lining of the large intestine, or colon, and rectum become inflamed, and is a form of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), according to the National Library of Medicine.
Green recently said on Good Morning America that he was currently "feeling good" and was keeping his condition under control with dietary changes, such as avoiding gluten and dairy as much as possible. He made no mention of medications or other treatment.
Read on for more information about ulcerative colitis:
What are the symptoms of ulcerative colitis?
Symptoms include diarrhea, weight loss, blood in the stool and abdominal pain.
How common is ulcerative colitis?
"Research suggests that about 600,000 to 900,000 people in the United States have ulcerative colitis," according to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that about 3.1 million adults, or 1.3 percent of the U.S. population, has been diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which includes Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.
Who is most affected by ulcerative colitis?
"It happens in two demographics," Mikhail Yakubov, a senior gastroenterologist at Manhattan Gastroenterology, who has not treated Green, told E! News. "You have one bell curve from ages 15 to 30. Then it flattens out for a whole long, long time. And then another peak from 50 to 80."
What causes ulcerative colitis?
According to the NIDDK, researchers are still studying how people's environments may interact with genes, the immune system, and the microbiome to affect the chance of developing the disease.
"It is best described as an autoimmune disease," Yakubov said. "How do autoimmune diseases in general happen? We can't give you a perfect answer, but the theory is that there's some environmental trigger. You're just living your life, you come in contact with this environmental trigger—it could be a cigarette, it could be a virus, it could be a food you ate—and it basically unlocks your genetic code and tells it to turn on. The disease just turns on and then you can't turn it off."
How is ulcerative colitis diagnosed?
"It's a combination of your clinical history—how you're feeling, the presentation of your symptoms, what I'm seeing on a physical exam, your lab work, especially inflammatory markers, which are typically sky high," Yakubov told E! News. "Inflammatory markers can be in the blood, but in the last couple of years we have identified a stool inflammatory marker called calprotectin. And then the most important part is a colonoscopy."
How do you treat ulcerative colitis?
"First, our goal is to induce remission," Yakubov said. "We want you to start feeling better and then we want to maintain remission. So induction is traditionally done with either oral medications if it's mild disease, called mesalamine. Then, for moderate to severe disease, we almost always have to involve a short round of steroids. To calm this immune system down, suppress it. Allow the tissue not to be attacked by its own immune system. And in the interim, you have to convert to a steroid sparing medication for maintenance of remission."
The doctor said that the majority of people suffering from ulcerative colitis "are required to be on a lifelong treatment," adding, "Once it starts happening two, three times a year, it's a sign that, overall, there will be larger involvement in the future."
Yakubov said that "sometimes, people have to remove the whole colon."
According to the National Library of Medicine, removing the colon will cure ulcerative colitis.
How many ulcerative colitis attacks will a patient have?
"I have patients who have flare-ups like every two, three years, and I have patients who haven't had a flare-up in a decade," Yakubov said. "And I have people who are just living with six month-flare ups and it's impossible to control."
Does ulcerative colitis cause cancer?
"If inflammation is ongoing and you feel better and you don't do anything about it but diet, what could happen is that tissue mutates and it turns to cancer," the doctor said. "People with ulcerative colitis have a 25-times increased risk of colon cancer compared to the general population."
What are the signs you should go see a doctor?
The doctor said he thinks it's very helpful that Green spoke out about his condition and offered words for caution for the general public. "Don't just wait for blood," Yakubov said. "If you're having pain regularly and you're losing weight, go see a doctor."