on PinterestA fasting-mimicking diet may help improve symptoms of Crohn’s disease. Image Credit: Lawren Lu/StocksyA short-term calorie deficit may be beneficial for people with Crohn’s disease.
on PinterestA fasting-mimicking diet may help improve symptoms of Crohn’s disease. Image Credit: Lawren Lu/Stocksy
- A short-term calorie deficit may be beneficial for people with Crohn’s disease.
- Research suggests that a calorie deficit for five consecutive days out of every month for three consecutive months could improve symptoms and biological indicators of the disease.
- Experts say some people with Crohn’s disease would not benefit from such an approach due to risks like malnutrition, weight loss, and dehydration.
A short term, calorie-restricted diet may provide significant improvement to physical symptoms for people with Crohn’s disease.
Researchers from Stanford found that following a fasting-mimicking diet (FMD) also improved biological indicators of the disease. The results were published on January 13 in Nature Medicine.
“We were very pleasantly surprised that the majority of patients seemed to benefit from this diet,” Sidhartha R. Sinha, MD, an assistant professor of gastroenterology and hepatology at Stanford and the senior author on the paper, said in a news release.
“We noticed that even after just one FMD cycle, there were clinical benefits. We have been very limited in what kind of dietary information we can provide patients. This study will give physicians evidence to support recommendations in an area that patients are very curious about,” Sinha continued.
Calorie-deficit improves Crohn’s symptoms
The study involved 97 people living with mild to moderate Crohn’s disease from across the United States and examined both symptoms and biological indicators of the condition.
The fasting mimicking group involved 65 study participants, while 32 were in a control group and followed their usual diet.
Those in the fasting-mimicking group ate a significant calorie deficit for five consecutive days out of the month for three consecutive months.
They consumed between 700 and 1,100 calories per day and were given plant-based meals. For the rest of the month, they continued to eat their usual diet.
The researchers found that, at the conclusion of the three months, two-thirds of those in the fasting-mimicking group experienced an improvement in their symptoms.
By comparison, at the end of the three months, less than half of those in the control group experienced an improvement in their symptoms.
The researchers concluded that any improvement in this group was likely due to natural fluctuations of Crohn’s disease and following their standard care regimen.
Fasting-mimicking improves gut inflammation
Among those who followed the fasting-mimicking diet, there were also significant changes in biological indicators of disease. These were determined by samples of both stool and blood.
“Our goal in collecting these and other biospecimens was to dig deeper into why there’s this differential response,” Sinha said. “Can we find mechanisms to explain the findings and signatures that might help predict patients who will respond to the diet?”
They found that those who followed the fasting-mimicking diet had less calprotectin protein in their stool, indicating less gut inflammation.
They also found that the immune cells of this group produced less of several different types of inflammatory molecules.
Emeran Mayer, MD, PhD, a gastroenterologist at UCLA, who wasn’t involved in the study, said the results are interesting.
“The study was done by a
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