Why does microscopic colitis mainly affect women?
Although not totally understood, microscopic colitis appears to be in the family of autoimmune syndromes, all of which are more common in women. It is likely that the proinfllammatory effects of estrogen are responsible for this predisposition. For this reason, I have theorized the one of the reasons microscopic colitis is becoming more common (which I believe to be true) and that it doesn’t affect women until later in life is that the use of high dose estrogens (and NSAID’s) has become more common. How should Microscopic Colitis be treated? I have studied the use of Pepto Bismol (Procter and Gamble) for the last 6 years and have achieved good results and learned a lot about the syndrome from these studies. However, although Pepto Bismol will relieve diarrhea in 90% and resolve the colitis on biopsies in about 80%, 20-30% experience relapses after they stop the medicine, and 10% do not respond initially. It has now become clear from extensive further research over the last 3-4 years th
