The role of nutrition in inflammatory bowel disease: disease associations, management of active disease and maintenance of remission

Inflammatory bowel diseases, including ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD) are chronic relapsing and remitting diseases of the gastrointestinal tract and are associated with significant morbidity. Symptoms may result from gastrointestinal inflammation as well as the commonly coexistent extra-intestinal manifestations. Current standard of care relies on immune suppression to control active disease and maintain remission, and while effective, this comes at the cost of side effects and the risk of adverse events.