title: The Role of Diet in Inflammatory Bowel Disease.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  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.
  
  
  RESULTS
  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. 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.
authors.affiliation: Division of Gastroenterology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Raina
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Shivashankar
authors.affiliation: Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Pennsylvania, 720 Blockley Hall, 423 Guardian Drive, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA. lewisjd@mail.med.upenn.edu.
authors.forename: James D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Lewis
mesh_terms: D004032:Diet / Q000009:adverse effects*; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D015212:Inflammatory Bowel Diseases / Q000178:diet therapy* / Q000209:etiology* / Q000523:psychology; D012307:Risk Factors
keywords: Diet; IBD pathogenesis; IBD therapy; Inflammatory bowel disease