Abstract
Purpose of Review
Diet may play both a causal and therapeutic role for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Physicians caring for patients with IBD are often asked to make dietary recommendations. However, there are no well-established guidelines on the use of diet as a treatment of IBD. In this review, we describe the evidence supporting diet as a potential cause for IBD, patient-perceived symptoms based on diet, current research on various diets as a treatment for IBD, and areas of future research.
Recent Findings
New studies in murine models suggest that dietary emulsifiers may trigger the gut inflammatory cascade. New studies of restriction diets in patients have shown a relationship between dietary intake, symptoms, and bowel inflammation.
Summary
Until several ongoing clinical trials are completed, a reasonable approach to dietary recommendations for patients with IBD is to propose a well-balanced, healthy (low-fat, low-sugar) diet prepared from fresh ingredients, such as the Mediterranean diet, with exclusions of self-identified foods that worsen or trigger IBD-related symptoms.
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Raina Shivashankar declares no conflict of interest.
James Lewis has received honorarium for consulting and research grant support from Nestle Health Science.
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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.
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Dr. Lewis has received research funding from Nestle Health Science.
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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Inflammatory Bowel Disease
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Shivashankar, R., Lewis, J.D. The Role of Diet in Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Curr Gastroenterol Rep 19, 22 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11894-017-0563-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11894-017-0563-z