The Gut Microbiome’s Essential Role in IBD

The gut microbiome is the collection of microorganisms including bacteria, fungi and viruses that live in the human digestive tract. Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a group of chronic conditions that cause inflammation of the digestive tract, caused by a disturbance in the microbiome. The two main types of IBD are ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease.

Ashwin N. Ananthakrishnan, M.D., M.P.H., MGH, associate professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and author of Diet and Microbiome-Directed Therapy 2.0 for IBD, published last month in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, sat down with Managed Healthcare Executive to explain the different environmental factors associated with IBD and how the microbiome can be altered to address IBD progression.

“If you look at IBD and what we've understood so far, we've uncovered over 300 potential genetic variants that are associated with IBD, but if you put them all together, they still explain only about 30% at the most of why people get Crohn's or ulcerative colitis. So still, the vast majority of why people get these conditions remains unexplained, except perhaps in large part, by the environment,” Ananthakrishnan said.“We now recognize the [gut microbiome] is central to the inflammation associated with IBD.”