IBD: A low-calorie plant diet relieves inflammation, repairs gut

Log in with your Medical News Today account to create or edit your custom homepage, catch-up on your opinions notifications and set your newsletter preferences.Sign up for a free Medical News Today account to customize your medical and health news experiences.Scientists at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles recently tested what they describe as the "fasting-mimicking" diet on a mouse model of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).In a study paper that now features in the journal Cell Reports, they describe how, compared with water-only fasting, periodic 4-day cycles of the fasting-mimicking diet "partially reversed" hallmarks of IBD in the mice.They saw that the diet reduced inflammation and increased populations of stem cells in the mice's intestines. Stem cells are essential for tissue repair and regeneration.In addition, the team observed that these effects appeared, in part, to be due to an increase in beneficial gut bacteria.Results from humans also showed that the diet reduced markers of inflammation and associated immune cells.Taking these results together, the researchers conclude that a low-calorie, plant-based, fasting-mimicking diet has potential as an effective treatment for IBD.Corresponding study author Valter Longo, a professor of biological sciences, says that their investigation is the first IBD study to bring together "two worlds of research.""The first [world]," he explains, "is about what you should eat every day, and many studies point to a diet rich in vegetables, nuts, and olive oil. Longo and colleagues write that while scientists do not yet fully understand the effect of diet on IBD, diets that alter gut bacteria in ways that promote inflammation "have consistently been associated" with the development of IBD.For their investigation, they put one group of mice on a low-calorie, low-protein, fasting-mimicking diet and another on a water-only fast.Both groups of mice had long-term intestinal features of IBD as a result of treatment with chronic dextran sodium sulfate.The mice on the fasting-mimicking diet consumed 50 percent of their normal intake of calories for 1 day, and then only 10 percent of their normal calories for a further 3 days.