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Nutrition and Health (including climate and ecological aspects)

Serum food specific IgG antibodies are associated with small bowel inflammation in patients with Crohn’s disease

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2023)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Background/aims

Food antigens are thought to play a vital role in the initiation and perpetuation of Crohn’s disease (CD). The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the potential association of serum food specific IgG antibodies and small bowel (SB) inflammation in CD patients.

Methods

We conducted a prospective observational study with 96 CD patients. Demographic, disease-related data and inflammatory parameters were collected. Serum food IgG antibodies were measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Capsule endoscopy was performed to detect SB inflammation quantified by the Lewis Score.

Results

Seventy-eight of (81.3%) CD patients were detected positive for at least one food-specific antibody. The five most prevalent food antibodies in CD patients were tomato, egg, corn, rice, and soybean. Patients with SB inflammation had a higher positive rate of food IgG antibodies (P = 0.010) and more IgG-positive food items (P = 0.010) than those without. Specifically, patients with SB inflammation were more likely to have positive food-specific IgG against egg (P = 0.014), corn (P = 0.014), and wheat (P = 0.048). Additionally, the number of positive food IgGs ≥ 3 and elevated ESR were independently associated with concurrent SB inflammation (P = 0.015 and P = 0.013, respectively).

Conclusion

Our study confirmed that CD patients with SB inflammation had a higher positive rate of food IgG antibodies and more IgG-positive food items. The number of food positive IgGs ≥ 3 and elevated ESR were independently associated with concurrent SB inflammation.

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Fig. 1: Distribution of positive food antibodies in Crohn’s disease patients with and without small bowel inflammation.

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author Chengdang Wang (wangcdhl@fjmu.edu.cn) upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge Ye XU and Qing Song LIN for their help in the statistical analysis and thank Wei Wei ZHENG and Yi Juan LIU at First Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical University for capsule endoscopy examination and scoring.

Funding

This study was partly funded by Natural Science Fundation of Fujian Province (No. 2021J02037 and 2022J01231) and Fujian Provincial Health Technology Project (No. 2020QNA050).

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Jintong Chen, Huaning Chen.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Gastroenterology, the First Affiliated Hospital, Fujian Medical University, Fuzhou, China

    Jintong Chen, Yanni Huang, Silin Li & Chengdang Wang

  2. Fujian Clinical Research Center for Liver and Intestinal Diseases, Fuzhou, China

    Jintong Chen, Yanni Huang & Chengdang Wang

  3. Department of Gastroenterology, National Regional Medical Center, Binhai Campus of the First Affiliated Hospital, Fujian Medical University, Fuzhou, China

    Jintong Chen, Yanni Huang & Chengdang Wang

  4. Department of Rheumatology, the First Affiliated Hospital, Fujian Medical University, Fuzhou, China

    Huaning Chen

  5. Department of Gastroenterology, Zhongshan Hospital Affiliated to Xiamen University, Xiamen, China

    Hongchai Xie

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Contributions

JTC and HNC designed the study, conceived the survey, analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript. YNH and HCX assessed the participants and collected clinical data. SLL analyzed the data. CDW designed and supervised the study, and revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chengdang Wang.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Each patient signed an informed consent, and the study protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of the First Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical University, China (MRCTA, ECFAH of FMU [2016] 332), in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

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Chen, J., Chen, H., Huang, Y. et al. Serum food specific IgG antibodies are associated with small bowel inflammation in patients with Crohn’s disease. Eur J Clin Nutr (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41430-023-01343-2

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