Precision nutrition for the prevention and management of inflammatory bowel disease

Abstract

The rising disease burden of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) parallels the changing dietary landscape accompanying industrialization, underscoring the growing relevance of nutritional science in disease prevention and management. Precision nutrition has emerged as a promising approach to prevent and manage IBD through tailored dietary recommendations based on multidimensional individual characteristics, including demographics, disease natural history and multiomics traits. In this Review, we investigate the sources of heterogeneity in dietary responses and propose a stepwise framework for precision nutrition: phenotype-based precision nutrition, informed by general phenotypes in clinical and community settings; omics-based precision nutrition, targeting subgroups with shared biological features identified via omics and complementary approaches; and integrated precision nutrition, providing personalized dietary strategies informed by comprehensive, multidimensional phenotypes. Advances in large-scale longitudinal multiomics cohorts, biomarker detection and artificial intelligence are transforming data acquisition and interpretation, thereby facilitating both interventional research and real-world application of precision nutrition. Key considerations for implementing precision nutrition in IBD are discussed. This Review outlines a holistic and translational framework, aiming to advance both research and clinical practice in the prevention and management of IBD. Diet and nutrition have emerged as promising approaches for the prevention and management of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). This Review outlines a stepwise framework for precision nutrition for IBD, highlighting how dietary recommendations can be tailored to the individual based on a range of characteristics (including demographics and multiomics data) and key considerations for clinical translation.