Principal Investigator Ece Mutlu, M.D., and his team at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago are recruiting patients with Crohn’s disease for a clinical trial. The study, which is sponsored by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), is studying the effects of two different dietary approaches.





The study will be investigating a special diet that combines recommendations from a number of complementary medical practices and the use of a prebiotic supplement.

Prebiotics are non-digestible carbohydrates that selectively the growth and or activity of beneficial microorganisms already in the colon. Prebiotics nourish probiotic bifidibacteria and yeasts, allowing them to grow faster, and increasing bifidibacteria levels significantly within seven days.

Prebiotics are predominantly composed of inulin and oligosaccharides such as fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS) or galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS)(8,9). They are found in small amounts in foods such as wheat, oats, bananas, asparagus, leeks, garlic and onions and in the commercial product Bimuno.



An earlier pilot study found that both of these approaches are acceptable to patients and well tolerated. The pilot trial showed improvement in two-thirds of patients.

Contact Information



Patients with Crohn’s disease interested in participating can go to www.clinicaltrials.gove and enter NCT00343642 or call 1-888-644-6226 or TTY (for deaf or hard of hearing patients) at 1-866-464-3615.