How Does Ulcerative Colitis Affect My Body? (0:53)
Ulcerative colitis is an autoimmune disease where the colon is affected; it's one of the inflammatory bowel diseases. Watch integrative gastroenterologist Robynne Chutkan, MD, discuss the main facts about ulcerative colitis and its classic symptoms.
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Ulcerative Colitis is an autoimmune disease. It's one of two autoimmune diseases that are related, Ulcerative Colitis is one and Crohn's  Disease is the other, and the two of them make up what we call inflammatory bowel disease. Now that's very different from irritable bowel syndrome, where by definition there's no inflammation in the intestines, with Ulcerative Colitis, the colon is affected.
It can be just the bottom part of the colon, the rectum or it can be the entire colon or it can be somewhere in between, but Ulcerative colitis is limited to the colon and it involves inflammation of that organ. The classic symptom with Ulcerative Colitis is bloody diarrhea patients may also have abdominal pain, anaemia, weight loss, nausea, fever but the classic symptom is diarrhea with blood in it.
Ulcerative colitis, along with the better-known Crohn's disease, is a type of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). Experts discuss what ulcerative colitis is and how to keep your colon healthy.
