Bowel rest and elemental diet in Crohn's disease

Dietary Intake and Nutritional Treatment in Childhood Crohn's Disease

“…Others have described administration as a constant rate infusion (25,26), but this has not been shown to be more effective than oral or nasogastric bolus administration. Previous studies of elemental diet therapy have described periods of administration ranging from 3 weeks (25,27) to > I year (26), and a previous controlled trial in children demonstrated that administration for 6 weeks was as effective as treatment with steroids (12). The present study has confirmed these results and indeed has shown 4 weeks of elemental diet therapy to be as effective.…”

“…Some studies have described a poorer therapeutic response in patients with predominantly colonic involvement (28), but others have found that elemental diets may be effective in such patients (29,30). It has also been suggested that the time to relapse may be shorter in patients treated with an elemental diet compared to steroids (27), but others have found no difference in long-term relapse rates (30,31). In the present study, there was a similar improvement in disease activity and a similar duration of remission in patients treated with the elemental diet or steroids, regardless of the site of disease.…”

Effectiveness of an ‘half elemental diet’ as maintenance therapy for Crohn's disease: a randomized‐controlled trial

“…Because Elental contains indeed only marginal amounts of lipids, the overall lipid intake could be less in the half ED group. Apart from this factor, reduced antigenic load, nutritional benefits, the supply of trophic amino acids, modification of the gut flora, intestinal permeability, faecal pH and bowel rest, among others, have been proposed as potential factors contributing to the maintenance of remission 31, 32 …”

Faecal microbiota profile of Crohn’s disease determined by terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis

“…Reduced antigenic load, low fat contents, the supply of trophic amino acids, intestinal permeability, faecal pH and bowel rest, among others, have been proposed as potential factors contributing to clinical effects of ED. 43,44 Although modulation of gut microbiota by ED has been suspected for long periods, there are no data regarding modulation. This is the first observation that ED can modulate faecal microbiota including uncultivable bacteria, suggesting that parts of the clinical effect of ED may be associated with changes in intestinal microbiota compositions.…”