Background: While the importance of diet in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is generally recognized, influence of food on the course of IBD is little understood.
Aim: The purpose of this study was to assess the association between food intake and course of disease in patients with IBD.
Methods: We performed a cross-sectional study on 103 adult patients (50 with active disease and 53 in remission, divided by their calprotectin level), who completed a food frequency questionnaire on their intake of several foods over 1 year. Diet, as assessed using a 146-item self-administered food frequency questionnaire, was correlated with objective evidence of disease based on fecal calprotectin levels.
Results: Legumes and potato were inversely associated with disease relapse (p value for trend 0.023) with patients in the highest quartile for legume and potato consumption carrying a 79% lower risk of active disease (adjusted OR 0.21, 95% CI 0.57-0.81). A positive association emerged between meat intake and disease relapse, the highest quartile for meat consumption coinciding with a higher risk of active disease (OR 3.61, 95% CI 1.15-11.38), though this was not significant in the adjusted analysis. No statistically significant associations were found between disease relapse and the intake of vegetables, cereals, dairy products, or fish.
Conclusions: Our results suggest a potentially protective role of legumes and potato and a detrimental influence of meat in maintaining clinical remission in IBD patients. These findings have important public health implications, but further interventional studies will be needed to demonstrate these associations.
Keywords: Diet; Fecal calprotectin; Inflammatory bowel diseases; Legume; Meat.