 Dr. Karen Boland |
The influence of the gut microbiome on inflammatory bowel disease
Research Summary: In Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), up to half of patients who have little or no active disease after treatment have persistent symptoms which may prove difficult to manage. There are a number of potential explanations for residual symptoms including drug side effects, and surgeries, but we hypothesized that gut bacteria may play a role. The intestinal microbiome refers to specific bacteria, viruses and fungi that reside on the bowel wall. In the human intestine, these bacteria contribute to the development of IBD. We have researched the influence of these microbes on patient symptoms.
We recruited 213 patients with IBD and 48 healthy patients, and analysed bacterial DNA from bowel biopsies. We found that in Crohn’s disease, the bacterial communities residing in treated and healed bowel was smaller when compared with healthy patients. Looking at these treated Crohn’s disease patients more closely, those patients who experienced ongoing daily loose stool and clinical symptoms despite successful treatment had less diverse microbiome communities in their colon than asymptomatic treated patients, and had lower numbers of beneficial gut bacteria. Similar findings were noted in patients with moderate-severe active ulcerative colitis, with less diverse bacterial communities associated with more severe symptoms. Future evaluation may support efforts to identify personalized probiotic components that will help specific patient populations.
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