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The DigestScience Foundation, the first public purpose foundation entirely dedicated to research on digestive pathologies and nutrition, has developed the HEROIC* project. This vast epidemiological study aims to identify the environmental causes of Crohn’s disease and then develop treatments to cure patients.
Working as a booster, the DigestScience Foundation intervenes in a number of areas concerning chronic inflammatory diseases of the intestine: research, care, training, education and the production of information for health professionals, researchers and patients. In this context, the HEROIC project, which has been divided into four distinct phases, studies the environmental factors behind Crohn’s disease and provides solutions to improve the patient’s life.
The HEROIC project is based on a large-scale epidemiological study that will be carried out in the Hauts-de-France region to find possible environmental causes of this disease.
This study will call on epidemiologists, geographers, gastroenterologists, historians, sociologists, toxicologists, biologists and specialists in air and water quality. The international scientific and medical community recognizes that the Hauts-de-France region is probably a world reference zone for identifying the causes of inflammatory intestinal diseases.
In the long term, the study will allow new recommendations to limit the sources of exposure to prevent the emergence of new cases of Crohn’s disease. An earlier diagnosis could also be considered, in order to avoid the destructive and irreversible damage of the disease on the intestine, and thus reduce its incidence.
*HEROIC : Highlighting EnviROnmental features in epIdemic areas of Crohn’s disease.
