They're painful, debilitating diseases - but are often suffered in silence.
They plague up to 20 per cent of Canadians during their lifetime, yet they're a taboo topic at dinner parties.
And despite their heavy burden on the health-care system, they rarely benefit from flashy fundraising galas or celebrity endorsements, like cancer or diabetes do.
Now a new research institute at McMaster University is helping to shine a light on diseases of the bowel, colon and intestine.
Director John Wallace aims to translate discoveries into better treatments for patients.
The institute, launched this week with a $15-million donation from the Farncombe family in Oakville, Ont., aims to uncover the causes of some of the most common gastrointestinal diseases, including irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.
"There is a tremendous need for research in this area," said Stephen Collins, associate dean of research at McMaster's faculty of health sciences, "because so little is known about the common diseases we deal with on a daily basis."
The Farncombe Family Digestive Health Research Institute will be an enhanced version of McMaster's digestive health research program, considered among the top research institutes in the country.
The money will expand the university's current research facility and provide $9-million in endowments for a new institute director and three new faculty positions. There will be new scholarships for graduate students.
Researchers will study the bacteria living in the human digestive system to try to uncover which variations are problematic and what triggers cause some people to be chronically ill, Dr. Collins said.
"The focus of research now is where is the breakdown between our body's immune system and our body's bacteria?" he said.
The institute's director is John Wallace, a pharmacologist who came from the University of Calgary. His priority is to translate scientific discoveries into better treatments for patients.
"I'm very keen on the notion that research doesn't stop when we publish a paper," Dr. Wallace said. "What we really need to do is focus on taking what we find, and both informing the public and translating that into meaningful changes in how health care is delivered."
The institute is welcome news for 49-year-old Tracy Buzdygan of St. Catharine's, Ont., who at 21 was diagnosed with Crohn's disease, a chronic inflammatory illness primarily involving the small and large intestines.
While she's not sure there will ever be a cure, she hopes scientists can develop new ways to "manage the flare-ups," she said.
"I'm very lucky I've been able to keep a full-time job," she said, "but there are a number of people who can't continue working."
The donation by the Farncombe family will expand the $3.5-million facility they also funded in 2004. It houses Canada's only gnotobiotic laboratory - a sterile lab that provides a controlled setting for experiments involving various bacteria.
The three new faculty positions will go to young researchers who have shown exceptional promise, Dr. Collins said. "It's like developing a farm team.
"I think this institute is going to make a lot of headway in understanding the different effects that these bacteria have on our bodies."
