A healthy gut diet can reduce IBD symptoms, but which is right for you? Learn how an emerging approach called precision nutrition can help relieve IBD.

People diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease typically face two realities: their lifestyle is literally cramped by illness, and they spend as much time searching for a healthy gut diet that works for them as they do actually enjoying it.

For many of the estimated 1.6 billion people in the U.S. with IBD, including Crohn’s or ulcerative colitis, the quest for a targeted, healthy gut diet can be painful. Symptoms of IBD, such as sharp abdominal cramps, are triggered by certain foods, but these foods differ among patients. What sets off IBD in you might be fine for someone else.

All of which can make you feel like a lab rat when approaching a menu. But what if the menu included only what you should eat, symptom-free? Researchers believe patients can achieve this by individualizing their healthy gut diets.

This concept is called precision nutrition.

Precision Nutrition in a (Digestible) Nutshell

Precision nutrition differs from the traditional approaches to managing IBD because it zeros in on the patient, rather than offering generic guidelines on “good” and “bad” IBD foods. It considers how a range of factors affect your digestion.

These factors include your eating habits, genetics, culture, health history, and socioeconomics, as well as physical activity and – importantly – your unique gut microbiome.

As described by Dr. Alan Moss, chief scientific officer at the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation: “For many years, we’ve given generic advice around what to eat and avoid or limit. Precision nutrition would give patients unique recommendations based on what may trigger them and what may be beneficial for them, while also factoring in cultural and lifestyle differences.”

Why IBD and Healthy Gut Diets Differ from Person to Person

Your gut microbiome performs an amazing role. Comprised of trillions of bacteria, fungi, and viruses, it influences how your body absorbs, stores, and metabolizes nutrients. This includes digesting what you eat, regulating your immune system, producing vitamins, and making metabolites such as short-chain fatty acids.

What you eat is what your microbiome eats.

Your gut microbiome is also distinctive to you. Therefore, the foods you eat can affect you differently than they would a friend, even if you both have IBD.

How IBD Alters the Microbiome

IBD affects your microbiome because it causes your immune system to attack the cells in your gastrointestinal tract, resulting in swelling of the GI lining. Such inflammation can cause an imbalance in the microbiome. And in some patients, a microbiome imbalance might trigger IBD.

Symptoms of IBD include:

• An urgent need to go to the bathroom, and more frequently
• Diarrhea
• Bloody stools
• Abdominal pain and cramping
• Weight loss
• An unexplained fever
• Joint pain and swelling (during Crohn’s flare-ups)
• Skin rashes (in Crohn’s flare-ups)

The Elements of Precision Nutrition, in 4 Courses

A precision nutrition diet is based on gut microbiome data, such as its sequencing, interactions, and how metabolites act in the GI tract. These insights can help patients anticipate how they will respond to different foods.

While precision nutrition is still being researched, physicians suggest some eating guidelines as a first step. They include:

• Adopting an anti-inflammatory diet. Some foods tend to reduce gut inflammation and IBD symptoms. These include oily fish, olive oil, fruits such as grapes and cranberries, and select teas. However, different patients respond in various ways, and researchers are seeking to nail down the factors for these differences.
• Trying a liquid or CD-TREAT diet. Some patients with severe IBD flare-ups find relief through full-on or partial liquid diets, but for some, the symptoms return after they return to solid foods. Studying the reintroduced foods can help isolate the culprits. Another individualized “liquid” approach is the CD-TREAT diet, which limits gluten and fiber. It imitates the characteristics of a liquid diet, but with reduced chances of symptom relapse.
• Get sufficient amounts of vitamin D. Adding vitamin D to your body might help prevent IBD onset. Vitamin D is an immune-modulator, meaning it adjusts the immune system’s activity. This is particularly important regarding vitamin D’s effectiveness as an anti-inflammatory. Research associates low levels of vitamin D with IBD because the deficiency might compromise immune function, according to the organization Precision Nutrition.
• Replacing processed foods with whole foods. Ultra-processed foods, such as candy, frozen meals, soda, and packaged baked goods, are linked to IBD development, according to Berkeley Limketkai, M.D., the director of clinical research at the UCLA Center for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases. This is because they typically include additives (to enhance their appearance, flavor, and shelf life) that could contribute to gut inflammation. In one recent study, 71% of patients with mild to moderate Crohn’s disease experienced reduced symptoms after eight weeks of sticking to a healthier, whole foods diet.

What’s Next for Creating a Healthy Gut Diet

Precision nutrition is an unfolding practice, and patients can look forward to the benefits of further research.

For example, technology is poised to play an important role in personalizing precision diets per patient. Artificial intelligence could analyze a patient’s genetic and behavioral data to detect subtle IBD patterns, predict its progression, and determine which foods cause flare-ups. At the University of California, San Diego, scientists are using AI to build a database of foods that might be helpful or harmful to IBD patients.

And Dr. Moss at the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation envisions blood and stool tests that could detect which foods you’ve recently eaten are good or bad for inflammation.

In the interim, the above dietary practices and a personal food diary can help relieve your IBD symptoms. Ideally, you will hopefully spend a lot less time looking for the right diet and spend more time enjoying it.

If you suspect you suffer from the symptoms of IBD, you can request an appointment here. For more information about IBD symptoms, diagnosis and treatment, visit our IBD page.