Anti-inflammatory diet and inflammatory bowel disease: what clinicians and patients should know?

ABSTRACT

Current treatment for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) includes the application of anti-inflammatory agents for the induction and remission of IBD. However, prolonged use of anti-inflammatory agents can exert adverse effects on patients. Recently, formulated dietary approach in treating IBD patients is utilized to improve clinical activity scores. An alteration of gastrointestinal microbiota through dietary therapy was found to reduce IBD and is recognized as a promising therapeutic strategy for IBD. One of the recommended formulated diets is an anti-inflammatory diet (AID) that restricts the intake of carbohydrates with modified fatty acids. This diet also contains probiotics and prebiotics that can promote balanced intestinal microbiota composition. However, scientific evidences are limited to support this specific dietary regime in maintaining the remission and prevention relapse of IBD. Therefore, this review aimed to summarize available data from various studies to evaluate the AID diet effectiveness which will be useful for clinicians to manage their IBD patients by application of improved dietary therapy.