Founder's Letter
Welcome to Nutritional Therapy for IBD's inaugural newsletter!
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Thank you for taking the time to learn more about Nutritional Therapy for IBD (NTforIBD), a new non-profit organization dedicated to improving the outcomes of patients with IBD through the use of nutrition. Our primary mission is to promote awareness of dietary options for the treatment of IBD and to provide educational resources to aid in their implementation in clinical practice. NTforIBD originated in 2018, serving this mission initially by establishing an annual exhibit for large gastroenterology meetings, including the North American Society of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (NASPGHAN) and the Crohn’s and Colitis Congress (CCC), to provide a constant visible presence of nutrition as treatment throughout the meetings and a venue for academic discussions regarding the use of nutritional therapy in clinical practice.
The exhibits are in their third annual year, continuing to offer a Meet the Professor and Practitioner program where medical leaders in the field of nutrition and IBD are available to answer clinical questions and share their experience utilizing nutritional therapy in the management of IBD. The latest research in nutrition and IBD is not only discussed here but has also been traditionally available to attendees on flash drive giveaways. With the creation of our new website, launching in January 2020 at the CCC, the flash drives are no longer as integral to sharing this science. The exhibit further serves to promote awareness of ongoing trials, PRODUCE and DINE-CD in the past, and MELODY this year, to aid in awareness and recruitment for nutritional research.
Each year we expand and improve our educational resources. The largest new resource has been created in the Nutritional Therapy for IBD website, which is designed to serve as a tool for clinicians and patients, to assist patients and save clinician time. It is considered the most comprehensive source of information for nutrition and IBD, offering links to research, publications, ongoing trials, latest nutritional news and events and useful resources for clinicians and patients interested in incorporating nutritional therapy. A video can be found below highlighting the features of the website and explaining how it may be utilized as a useful tool for clinicians and patients.
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Nutritional Therapy for IBD Website Walkthrough
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As the exhibits are virtual this year, we have expanded our educational offerings this year to include a lecture series provided by many international leaders in the field of nutrition and IBD. For an update on the new and exciting science surrounding nutritional therapy, you may find these presentations accessible from NTforIBD's Original Presentations Showcase. For those that are looking for a pathway to integrate nutritional therapy into care, an excellent presentation is included here from Stanford Children’s IBD nutrition clinic.
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Nutritional Therapy for IBD's
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There is growing interest in nutritional therapy with an increasing number of clinicians seeking resources to help integrate its use in clinical practice. We are pleased with our continued growth and expansion of relationships with clinicians interested in nutritional therapy and we appreciate your interest in being part of our community and receiving these news updates. As we strive to meet the needs of clinicians and patients, we welcome discussions to improve or create resources. Please use the Contact Page on our website to engage in discussions with us.
We believe nutritional therapy is foundational to the management of IBD and has the greatest potential to alter the long-term trajectory of this illness. As science supports the centrality of nutritional therapy in the management of IBD, the vision of NTforIBD is for every patient (child or adult), to receive the option to include it in their medical plan for optimal success. Thank you for your support in increasing awareness of nutritional therapy! We look forward to the continued growth in awareness of and expansion of science and advancements of nutritional research in 2021!
Kim S. Beall, Pharm.D.
Cofounder Nutritional Therapy for IBD
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Website Updates
An important new addition to the website this year are the Therapeutic Diets Overview Tables. A common question when navigating therapeutic diets is “How do they compare to one another in terms of the foods that are included or excluded?” These tables provide the most extensive comparison to date. Most importantly, they have been reviewed by published researchers from each of these diets, not only for accuracy but also for proper representation of the principles of the diets. Creation of these tables required extensive review and revision to reach this published state. As it is tricky to compare the dietary therapies given their various stages of use, please be sure to read the introduction and notes on this page relative to each of the diets, as the comments provided here help to clarify terms of comparison and important considerations from these dietary researchers. Many find these tables to be very useful in navigating the similarities and differences among available therapeutic diets and we believe you will too.
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Publications and Research Updates
We strive to provide up-to-date references and have added many new and interesting publications to the website this year. Some of these recent additions are described below.
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News and Events
The results of two major nutritional research trials will be presented at the upcoming virtual 2021 Crohn’s and Colitis Congress Congress: PRODUCE (Personalized Research on Diet in Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn’s Disease) and DINE-CD (Trial of Specific Carbohydrate and Mediterranean Diets to Induce Remission of Crohn’s Disease).
If you are attending the conference, stop by our virtual booth and join our live Zoom discussion. Search for Nutritional Therapy for IBD in the Exhibitor section and click the link to enter the booth.
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We thank all of the Medical Advisors on our Medical Advisory Board for their hard work this year in reviewing content for the website, updating it with new articles, preparing lectures for NASPGHAN, participating at exhibits, and the many other donations of their time and expertise. We further welcome two new members, Ala Shaikhkhalil, MD, and Jennifer Smith, RD, from Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH.
Thank you for reading the updates from Nutritional Therapy for IBD. We appreciate your interest in advocacy for nutritional therapy in the management of IBD!
NTforIBD Publishing Team
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