Abstract
AIM: To explore the relationship between food intolerance and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
METHODS: One hundred and forty-three patients with IBD, including 97 patients with ulcerative colitis and 46 patients with Crohn's disease were included in the study. Forty-seven healthy subjects served as normal controls. Serum levels of specific IgG antibodies to 14 food allergens were semi-quantitatively measured by ELISA.
RESULTS: The positive rates of food-specific IgG antibodies were 75.52% (108/143) in patients with IBD, 78.35% (76/97) in patients with UC and 69.57% (32/46) in patients with CD, all of which were significantly higher than that in the control group (17.02%) (all P < 0.05). There were no significant differences in the positive rates of food-specific IgG antibodies between patients with IBD, UC, or CD (all P > 0.05). Of 14 kinds of food tested, the percentage of IBD patients developing food intolerance ranged from 1.39% (beef, mushroom) to 45.46% (egg). Egg was most likely to be intolerable, followed by shrimp, crab, corn, milk, rice, and codfish.
CONCLUSION: Food intolerance may be one of the causes of IBD. Testing the levels of food-specific IgG antibodies can provide reference for clinical diagnosis and treatment of IBD.
Collapse