COMMENTARY

Ulcerative colitis

Diet and relapsing ulcerative colitis: take off the meat?

H Tilg¹ and A Kaser²

¹ Department of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, University Hospital Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
² Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Department of Gastroenterology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr H Tilg
Department of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, University Hospital Innsbruck, Anichstrasse 35, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria; Herbert.Tilg@uibk.ac.at

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Dietary factors such as red meat, high protein intake, and alcohol are associated with relapse in ulcerative colitis, probably mediated via hydrogen sulphide production.

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Keywords: ulcerative colitis; diet; meat; hydrogen sulphide; butyrate; sulphur

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Major advances in the understanding of the aetiopathogenesis and genetics of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) have been accompanied by an increase in the therapeutic armamentarium, including immunosuppressants and anticytokine drugs. Whereas patients are in many cases highly motivated to use prescribed drugs in those chronic disorders, they would be even more willing to change lifestyle and dietary habits so they could actively influence the course of their disease. Therefore, one of the most common questions physicians treating patients with IBD are asked is whether changing diet could positively affect the course of their disease. So far, and this has been especially true for patients with ulcerative colitis (UC), our answer had been "we do not know and there are no special recommendations".

This may now change as Jowett and colleagues¹ in this issue of Gut present interesting and clinically novel data studying the role of dietary factors on . . . [Full text of this article]

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Relevant Article

Influence of dietary factors on the clinical course of ulcerative colitis: a prospective cohort study

S L Jowett, C J Seal, M S Pearce, E Phillips, W Gregory, J R Barton, and M R Welfare
Gut 2004 53: 1479-1484. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]