Definition of "inflammatory bowel disease" []

• A chronic disorder of the gastrointestinal tract, especially Crohn's disease or an ulcerative form of colitis, characterized by inflammation of the intestine and resulting in abdominal cramping and persistent diarrhea. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "A genome-wide association study identifies IL23R as an inflammatory bowel disease gene."
• "Probiotic Lactobacillus spp. diminish Helicobacter hepaticus–induced inflammatory bowel disease in interleukin-10-deficient mice."
• "This pattern began in the late 1980s, when Wakefield, a Canadian-trained surgeon then in his early thirties, challenged the conventional thinking about a debilitating and incurable inflammatory bowel disease IBD called Crohn’s disease."