The Challenge Study: A Dietary Personalization Protocol for Patients With Crohn's Disease and Deep Remission

The Challenge study is a prospective, open label, pilot trial in patients in deep remission on dietary maintenance therapy. The purpose of this study is to determine whether they can consume some of the products that were eliminated from their diet, named the Crohn's Disease Exclusion Diet (CDED), and to evaluate if low dose exposure is harmful.

The investigators have previously hypothesized that Crohn's disease may occur via a sequence of events involving dysbiosis and genetically determined or environmentally acquired defects in innate immunity, and have further hypothesized that the mechanism of EEN for induction of remission acts by reducing exposure to dietary components that may cause an acquired bacterial clearance defect or generate dysbiosis. Based on this premise, the investigators developed a new exclusion diet. This diet, named the Crohn's Disease Exclusion Diet (CDED) reduces exposure to all the components identified in rodent models as well as two components that are highly suspect but have not been investigated in models. This diet was evaluated for induction of remission through week 12 and succeeded in inducing remission in 70% of 47 selected patients. The investigators have now progressed to three randomized controlled trials to evaluate the diet in different populations with different disease severity, and the results from the first RCT demonstrate a high remission rate in the CDED arm. However , to date the investigators have used the same diet for all patients. The investigators are now encountering patients on the diet in deep remission, but the investigators do not know if they can consume some of the products ( such as milk fat and gluten) that were eliminated. The investigators therefore are starting to challenge our patients in deep remission with low dose exposure to evaluate if low dose exposure is harmful. The investigators wish to document this and obtain stool samples for calprotetctin and microbiome to investigate these patients at a microbiological level as well.