Prebiotics and IBD - Mythbuster

The Myth: Prebiotics can cure IBD

The Truth: May be beneficial in reducing symptoms like diarrhoea, bloating and inflammation.

What are prebiotics?

Prebiotics are not digested by us but instead provide food for the microbes that live in our intestines. Prebiotics may increase levels of supportive bacteria living inside us and when our microbes break them down they produce compounds (short chain fatty acids (SCFA’s)) and lactate) that help support the health of our gut and other organs.

 

Where can we find prebiotics?

Most prebiotics are plant fibres and they are naturally present in many foods like garlic, onions, Jerusalem artichokes and oats.

There are many different types of prebiotics, with specific names, including galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS), fructo-oligosaccharide (FOS), lactulose and inulin, and each has a different structure.

Some prebiotics are also available in supplement form. The most highly researched and commonly available are inulin-type fructans (FOS), lactulose, and galactooligosaccharides (GOS) (1).

 

Benefits of prebiotics

  •  Support the diversity of the microbes living within us

  • Help support the integrity of the lining of our intestine

  • Increases SCFA production which has a beneficial impact on our health

  • Helps to increase anti-inflammatory immune molecules and decrease proinflammatory immune molecules (2).

Prebiotics and IBD

There have been quite a few animal trials looking at prebiotics and IBD and more recently some human trials too. Generally, many have shown some kind of positive impact whether that be in reducing symptoms like diarrhoea and bloating and some even in reducing inflammation.

Given what we know about the benefits of prebiotics on gut health, its not surprising they may help with IBD. However, it is certainly early days in knowing which specific prebiotics may be most beneficial for Crohns and Colitis and in what doses. If prebiotics is something you’d like to try I’d suggest speaking to your IBD team or nutritionist before taking them as choosing the right one for you, your symptoms and type of IBD will be important to reduce the risk of experiencing adverse symptoms.

References

  1. Carlson, J. L., Erickson, J. M., Lloyd, B. B., & Slavin, J. L. (2018). Health Effects and Sources of Prebiotic Dietary Fiber. Current developments in nutrition, 2(3), nzy005. https://doi.org/10.1093/cdn/nzy005

  2. Looijer-van Langen, M. A., & Dieleman, L. A. (2009). Prebiotics in chronic intestinal inflammation. Inflammatory bowel diseases, 15(3), 454–462. https://doi.org/10.1002/ibd.20737

  3. Davani-Davari, D., Negahdaripour, M., Karimzadeh, I., Seifan, M., Mohkam, M., Masoumi, S. J., Berenjian, A., & Ghasemi, Y. (2019). Prebiotics: Definition, Types, Sources, Mechanisms, and Clinical Applications. Foods (Basel, Switzerland), 8(3), 92. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods8030092

 

Clemmie Macpherson