High Fructose Diet Worsens Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Consumption of fructose may worsen intestinal inflammation common to inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), according to a new study.

The study is published in Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology.

Worldwide, the rates of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) have been increasing. According to the CDC, around three million Americans are diagnosed with IBD each year. There has been an increase of one million in incidence in the late 1990s.

‘High dietary fructose increases inflammation and worsens inflammatory bowel disease. This effect was explained by changes in the composition, distribution and metabolic function of resident enteric microbiota.’

Consumption of a western diet, including fructose, is associated with increased rates of diabetes and obesity, and the researchers believe that IBD may be an additional disease worsened by fructose intake.

The researchers found evidence of a direct link between fructose in foods and inflammatory bowel disease. The evidence supports the fact that high consumption of dietary fructose worsens disease in inflammatory bowel disease patients.

The finding is crucial as it has the potential to provide guidance on diet choices for inflammatory bowel disease patients.

The researchers used three mouse models with IBD. They were fed high amounts of fructose.

The researchers found that high dietary fructose worsened colonic inflammation. The models also had notable effects in their gut bacteria, including changes in their type, metabolism and localization within the colon.

Complementary mechanistic work also demonstrated that the microbiota is causally linked to the detrimental effects of the high fructose diet.

The paper concludes that the "excess dietary fructose consumption had a pro-colitic effect that can be explained by changes in the composition, distribution and metabolic function of resident enteric microbiota."

The researchers have planned to expand on these findings by developing interventions to prevent the pro-inflammatory effects of dietary fructose. They also plan to evaluate whether this diet increases colitis-associated tumorigenesis.

They consider evaluating the effects of the diet on colitis-associated tumorigenesis as important because IBD patients are at increased risk of developing colon cancer due to a lifetime of chronic inflammation of the gut.



Source: Medindia