Background: Lack of dietary fiber has been suggested to increase the risk of developing various chronic inflammatory diseases, whereas supplementation of diets with fiber might offer an array of health-promoting benefits. Consistent with this theme, we recently reported that in mice, compositionally defined diets that are made with purified ingredients and lack fermentable fiber promote low-grade inflammation and metabolic syndrome, both of which could be ameliorated by supplementation of such diets with the fermentable fiber inulin.
Methods: Herein, we examined if, relative to a grain-based mouse diet (chow), compositionally defined diet consumption would impact development of intestinal inflammation induced by dextran sulfate sodium (DSS) and moreover, whether DSS-induced colitis might also be attenuated by diets supplemented with inulin.
Results: Analogous to their promotion of low-grade inflammation, compositionally defined diet of high- and low-fat content with cellulose increased the severity of DSS-induced colitis relative to chow. However, in contrast to the case of low-grade inflammation, addition of inulin, but not the insoluble fiber cellulose, further exacerbated the severity of colitis and its associated clinical manifestations (weight loss and bleeding) in both low- and high-fat diets.
Conclusions: While inulin, and perhaps other fermentable fibers, can ameliorate low-grade inflammation and associated metabolic disease, it also has the potential to exacerbate disease severity in response to inducers of acute colitis.