Effects of enteral polymeric diet on gut microbiota in children with Crohn's disease

We read with great interest the article by Wu et al 1 showing that the impact of diet on the composition of the gut microbiota was milder than its impact on metabolites produced by the gut microbiota, in healthy humans. Enteral nutrition is an effective treatment to manage active Crohn's disease (CD) in children.2 CD is known to be associated with gut microbial dysbiosis that is characterised by decreased diversity and imbalances in the intestinal microbiome. Recent evidence indicates that exclusive enteral nutrition (EEN) may affect gut microbiota in children with CD,3 but it remains elusive whether the aforementioned changes may occur independently of disease flares. We thus studied the impact of either EEN with Modulen (EXCL-MOD) or partial enteral nutrition (PEN) with Modulen (MOD) IBD on the bacterial composition of the gut microbiota from children with CD during either remission or active phase. In this single-centre, prospective, observational cohort study, 34 children followed at Nancy University Children Hospital …