Medical expert on Darren Fletcher’s condition: ‘Two out of three will recover well’

The condition which has forced Darren Fletcher to take a full break from football can end a career in sport, but in most cases a full recovery is achieved.

Professor Jonathan Rhodes, an expert on inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), has dealt with a number of cases of ulcerative colitis (UC), the condition that has forced the Scotland and Manchester United midfielder to take an extended period of rest.

UC is a disease of the large intestine, an illness that affects one in 500 people in the United Kingdom, with the first traces generally appearing between the ages of 15 and 30. With possible symptoms including diarrhoea, passing blood and abdominal pain, and with weight loss a potential side-effect, Professor Rhodes says playing sport would be very difficult if the condition persisted.

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Professor Rhodes, who is based at the University of Liverpool, said: “When it is bad, it can make you anaemic and cause weight loss and it would be hard to do any job, not just sport, so to not play sport is understandable.

“The causes are not well understood, but they can be down to bacteria in the guts fighting against the body’s immune system. Arguably, they also include stress, bacteria or virus.”

Treatment is a course of anti-inflammatories, with Professor Rhodes adding that two in three sufferers do return to good health, as well as professional sport when applicable.

“In two thirds of cases, the condition settles down with a good remission,” he said of the illness that has also affected Olympic rower Sir Steve Redgrave.

“They can return to a normal life and that can include sport. Two out of three do well, but for one in three, it rumbles on. You are very unlucky to be in that third and, in that case, it would be very difficult to go back to sport. One in four people do require surgery, and that can be major surgery. The life expectancy does remain normal.”

Redgrave’s achievements after his diagnosis may act as inspiration for Fletcher. In 1992 doctors informed him that his symptoms were ulcerative colitis, but the same year he won gold at the Barcelona Olympics, before going on to add Olympic golds in Atlanta (1996) and Sydney (2000). Redgrave, who also suffered from diabetes, said of his colitis in an interview at the time: “I first developed it when I picked up salmonella poisoning at a training camp in South Africa. That settled down after a couple of weeks. They say it’s stress-related. The last attack was when I was diagnosed as diabetic, but there’s been no recurrence since. Every three months I have a check-up.”