Prof Balfour Sartor is director of the multidisciplinary centre for IBD research and treatment at the University of North Carolina, in the United States. He was one of the first speakers at the opening session of the annual scientific meeting of the New Zealand Society of Gastroenterology and the New Zealand Nurses Organisation (gastroenterology section). The three-day conference finished yesterday.
Having IBD usually meant either Crohn's disease, or ulcerative colitis, and the effects of both could be debilitating.
At present, clinicians tended towards the "lame" approach of telling patients to avoid food that exacerbated their symptoms. Patients were already self-prescribing "bizarre" diets from the Internet and popular culture, he said.
There was sufficient evidence to prompt an official move away from controlling IBD with drugs, towards treating and even preventing them with diet.
High sugar, low fibre food made symptoms worse; food that was unprocessed, high fibre, and low fat helped.
Other environmental factors included antibiotic use, air pollution, one-off infections, obesity, smoking, vitamin deficiency, although more research was needed on most of these.
Genetics was a factor, but many more people carried genetic markers of IBD than the number with the diseases, suggesting definite environmental triggers.
Clinicians could monitor patients intensively once on a special diet, and through adopting healthy diets early, society could "dream" of preventing IBD.
An "explosion" of IBD was witnessed when countries adopted a highly processed Western-style diet, Prof Sartor said.
Speaking to delegates as the conference got under way, convener and Dunedin gastroenterologist, Dr Michael Schultz, said it had not been easy to clinch the prestigious conference for Dunedin, because "not everyone thought we would get everyone to Dunedin".
Given the conference had a renewed focus on science, the University of Otago was an excellent host, he said.
