Diets for inflammatory bowel disease: What do we know so far?

Abstract

In recent years, the role of diet in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has gained great interest within the scientific community. Eating habits from industrialised countries (the so-called western diet or WD) have been associated with a higher incidence of IBD in observational studies, although the dietary factors responsible for the development of the disease are still to be elucidated. Some components of the diet with proinflammatory potential may cause changes in immunity and intestinal microbiota, leading to the inflammatory reaction that causes IBD-related lesions. The quality of available evidence is low, due to methodological issues, such as the lack of intervention studies, small sample size and heterogeneity of studies. For this reason, scientific societies have offered their recommendations using clinical practice guidelines and consensus documents, in order to establish a common criterion in the nutritional treatment of patients with IBD. The objective of this review was to summarise the data published regarding diet in IBD and review the recommendations given by scientific societies.