If we could work out what dietary aspects cause IBD could we prevent this rise? Hmm … the lessons from obesity and diabetes where we know the cause are salient. The prevalence is only going UP. And here we don’t even know. We need robust models and biomarkers to fix this problem.

Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis are chronic, incurable inflammatory bowel diseases that typically affect young people. They are characterised by unpredictable and disabling periods of ‘flare’ that have a cumulative damaging effect on the bowel.