A new paper from Juste et al in Spain, which gives an excellent overview of the history of chronic regional intestinal inflammatory diseases (CRIID) and a useful assessment of where we are now.
From the abstract: Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis in humans and paratuberculosis in domestic and wild ruminants can be defined as chronic regional intestinal inflammatory diseases (CRIID). This review is a literature overview on these diseases in humans, non-human primates, dogs, cats, rabbits, equids and ruminants with a focus on pathological and microbiological features aimed identifying common characteristics that could lead to a unified pathological classification for a better understanding of their mechanisms and causes. The result is a framework of inflammatory forms throughout the different species indicative of common mechanisms of the slow infection type characterized by a time course varying from weeks to months or even years, and where the inflammatory component would be more prominent in the intestinal interface between host and environment… This should provide new insights for causation demonstration and therapeutic approaches in human IBD.