Perth-based clinical trial is recruiting patients to assess if a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet can help manage ulcerative colitis.
Ulcerative colitis (UC) is one of the two most common forms of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), a condition affecting around 75,000 Australians. Ulcerative colitis causes inflammation of the colon, and can lead to a wide range of symptoms, including abdominal pain, bloody stools, diarrhoea, fatigue, weight loss and loss of appetite.
While the precise cause of UC is not fully understood, diet is known to play an important role in the development of symptoms.
Now, a new clinical trial, led by Charlene Grosse, a PhD student from Edith Cowan University, is testing whether a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet can improve the symptoms of UC. A lacto-ovo vegetarian diet is a mostly plant-based diet that excludes meat, fish, and poultry but includes dairy and eggs.
“Diet is considered to be one of the contributing factors to play a role in the development of the disease with the Western diet (high in fat, animal protein and low in fruits and vegetables) linked to increased IBD prevalence,” Ms Grosse told Medical Forum.
The study aims to determine if a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet can serve as an adjunctive therapy that achieves significant clinical response in mild to moderate UC, in addition to standard treatments. The study also seeks to evaluate how this vegetarian diet can influence the composition of participants’ gut microbiota and their quality of life.
“…there is limited research and guidelines on what is the best diet to follow and the diets do not always remain nutritionally adequate,” Ms Grosse said. “Studies show that people with IBD have an imbalance in their gut bacteria known as dysbiosis. A plant-based diet, high in dietary fibre, has been associated with greater diversity of the gut bacteria and therefore could be potentially improve disease management,” she added.
About the study
Study type: this is a pen labelled, single centre, single blinded, randomised controlled clinical trial.
Participants: the study aims to recruit 30 participants for this study.
WA Recruitment sites: St John of God Subiaco Hospital and Fiona Stanley Hospital.
Eligibility: contact Prof Grosse (charlene.grosse@ecu.edu.au) for further details about this trial, including participant inclusion criteria.
Additional information: visit the study clinical trial website.