Dietary Interventions in Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Abstract

Inflammatory bowel disease, which primarily includes ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, is a group of chronic diseases of the gastrointestinal tract. Mainly affecting young people, it is characterized by periods of exacerbation and remission. In recent years, there has been an increase in the prevalence of inflammatory bowel disease worldwide, including Poland. The potential impact of nutrition and selected dietary components that are directly or indirectly involved in the pathogenesis of intestinal lesions in IBD is not fully clear. Evaluating the impact of diet on the course of IBD is very complex due to the fact that regardless of a dietary model adopted, each one is based on consumption of many different food groups which affect one another. However, the growing need to produce dietary recommendations for these patients has prompted the International Organization for the Study of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IOIBD) to develop nutrition guidelines for the patients. The present paper characterizes the dietary models most commonly discussed in research studies and their potential impact on IBD activity.

Keywords: Mediterranean diet; anti-inflammatory diet; dietary interventions; gluten-free diet; inflammatory bowel disease; intestinal microbiota; lactose-free diet; low FODMAP diet; nutrition; specific carbohydrates diet.