Diet detective puts Crohn’s disease under the spotlight

The search for the perfect diet to manage Crohn's disease symptoms and prevent disease progression has been on for decades. University of Newcastle PhD candidate Cheenie Nieva is investigating how eliminating specific food triggers may improve quality-of-life for millions of people living with the disease worldwide thanks to the generous support of alumni Merv and Judy Lindsay.

Food is a big part of life for people living with Crohn's disease. Eating certain foods can ease symptoms while other foods can trigger painful attacks and even be implicated in the development of the disease.

Cheenie seeks to understand how different components of the ‘most likely suspect’ foods, such as dietary fats, wheat, and food additives like emulsifiers, affect the immune system and gut microbiota, and contribute to disease symptoms.

Supporting Cheenie’s research gives us an opportunity to add to the pool of knowledge and talent working to understand what aggravates the disease. We hope this helps improve treatment and management of Crohn's for more people in the future.”

Merv and Judy Lindsay
Bachelor of Science (Engineering), 1974
Bachelor of Social Science (Honours), 2002

Solving the food trigger puzzle

“My research aims to examine the relationship between diet, the gut microbiome and immune system. Specifically, I want to investigate how immune cells from Crohn’s disease patients respond when challenged with specific fats, emulsifiers and wheat-containing foods, and whether eliminating these foods can help improve their symptoms and reduce or prevent disease flares,” says Cheenie.

Importantly, Cheenie’s research will also focus on whether diagnostic screening can be used to predict who will benefit most from excluding certain foods, limiting the ‘trial and error’ approach, which is hard on patients.

Thanks to generous support from donors like Merv and Judy Lindsay, our researchers can continue to search for answers and discover better treatments for people living with chronic diseases like Crohn’s.

People living with Crohn's pay special attention to what they eat and often self-impose dietary restrictions, but there is still no consensus on a specific diet that can be recommended to help manage the disease and improve quality of life.”

Cheenie Nieva  
Bachelor of Biomedical Science (Honours), 2020

If you would like to support an area of research that is important to you and help improve lives, please see Kate's contact information below.

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• Phone: 02 4921 8612
• Email: philanthropy@newcastle.edu.au