Es zol dir dunern in boykh un blitsn in di hoyzn. It’s an old Yiddish curse that many Jews know all too well: You should thunder in your belly and lightning in your pants.
The Jewish community has long joked among ourselves that we are plagued by tummy troubles, whether that be IBS, lactose intolerance, acid reflux disease or just general dyspepsia. But with 2026 quickly becoming hot diarrhea summer (thanks, cyclospora!), it begs the question whether or not the Jewish community is, in scientific fact, actually more prone to stomach issues.
The short answer is yes — for Ashkenazi Jews!
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Since at least the late 1980s and early ’90s, scientists have studied the prevalence of inflammatory bowel disease in the Jewish community. “Ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease are more common among Jews than among non-Jews,” authors MP Roth et al succinctly begin their 1989 paper “Geographic origins of Jewish patients with inflammatory bowel disease.” That shakes out to Crohn’s Disease being two-four times more prevalent in Ashkenazi Jews compared to people of non-Jewish European descent. Lactose intolerance, meanwhile, occurs in 50-80% of Ashkenazi Jews.
In recent years, scientists have begun to hone in on genes within the Ashkenazi Jewish community which can cause IBD. In 2018, doctors at Cedars-Sinai and five other medical institutions found that “10 variations of the NOD2 and LRRK2 exomes that are associated with increased risk for Crohn’s and are more likely to occur among Ashkenazi Jews.” Then, in 2023, another study isolated “8 novel and plausible IBD-causing genes from the exomes of 4453 genetically identified Ashkenazi Jewish IBD cases (1734) and controls (2719).”
The reason for these high rates of tummy ache-inducing disease is something called founder’s effect. Essentially, this effect describes when a small group is cut-off from a wider population. “These increased genetic risk factors seen in Ashkenazi populations appear to be rooted in a history of migrations, catastrophic reductions in population, and then re-population from a small number of surviving founder families over many centuries,” Dr. Dermot P. McGovern of Cedars-Sinai described in 2018.
…Totally, totally. Very cool.
Hopefully, all this research will eventually lead to better treatment options and preventative care for those dealing with IBD. Until then, at least, Ashkenazi Jews can take comfort in the fact that they were right to be cracking so many diarrhea-related jokes in the first place. And, of course, that Pepto Bismal, GasX and Tums exist.
