The Role of Diet in Inflammatory Bowel Disease
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.
Shivashankar, R., & Lewis, J. D. (2017). The Role of Diet in Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Current Gastroenterology Reports, 19(5), 22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11894-017-0563-z
When looking at medical therapy, there are some patients who are adequately managed with one medication, while others require multiple medications. In the future, there will likely be a subpopulation of patients with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis whose inflammation can be controlled with a therapeutic diet. For other patients, dietary manipulation may be an ancillary therapy that can allow them to use less immunosuppression and still remain in remission. Finally, as with all medical therapies, there will almost certainly be a subset of the population in which dietary therapy is completely ineffective.
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