Diet to improve disease control in patients with active Crohn disease

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic debilitating diseasethat mainly affects adolescents and young adults, leading to diarrhea,abdominal pain, blood loss and a decreased quality of life. Availabletherapeutic options only allow for temporary disease control in aproportion of patients, but a considerable group of patients still lackan effective therapy to control the disease. Several factors arethought to play an important role in the cause of IBD, among whichenvironmental factors. The increasing incidence of IBD in Asia andEastern Europe suggests dietary may be partly responsible.Furthermore, some dietary interventions (e.g. formula-based liquiddiet in children) have proven to be efficacious in controlling diseaseactivity. We recently developed a diet aiming at improving the gutbacteria and inflammation by decreasing the consumption of proinflammatory foods (e.g. emulsifiers), called the FIT diet. The FIT dietwas tested in healthy volunteers (HV) and patients with ulcerativecolitis, which is a subtype of IBD. The FIT diet led to a significantdecrease in intestinal inflammation. We now aim at testing the FITdiet in patients with Crohn’s disease.

Keywords:IBD, Diet

Disciplines:Gastro-enterology