Abstract: The present invention discloses a functional relationship between a recognized disease condition and a polymorphism in the nucleotide factor kappa B promoter (NFKB1). This relationship provides a platform for methods of altering promoter activity and for determining similar relationships between specific pathologies and identified polymorphisms. A statistically significant risk of developing ulcerative colitis was shown to be correlated with the presence of an ATTG insertion/deletion in the NFKB1 promoter and is likely to apply also to a variety of other inflammatory diseases.