(191m) Raspberry-Derived Treatment of Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) affects over 1.6 million people in the United States, with patients suffering from persistent diarrhea, rectal bleeding, weight loss, and abdominal pain.^1,2 In healthy people, the intestinal epithelium provides a size- and charge-selective barrier that allows for the absorption of nutrients while blocking the transport of bacteria and pathogens.³ Patients with IBD experience chronic inflammation of the intestinal epithelium and increased permeability of the intestinal barrier.⁴ This is problematic, because as intestinal barrier function decreases, molecular selectivity is lost and toxins may permeate across the intestine—potentially entering systemic circulation and further stimulating inflammation. Current treatments are limited to the management of IBD, and include antibiotics, steroids, and immunosuppressants, all of which can lead to long-term health problems with prolonged use.⁵

We have developed a raspberry-derived treatment for IBD that fortifies intestinal barrier function, treating one the sources of the disease—a leaky gut. Raspberry extract was produced by freeze drying fresh raspberries, extracting them with ethanol/water followed by acetone, and lyophilizing the aqueous phase to produce a stable extract. The raspberry extract was found to reduce the transport of a small molecule permeation marker across the Caco-2 monolayer intestinal model, indicating its potential as a treatment for IBD. Using healthy mice as a preliminary in vivo model, rectally administered raspberry extract decreased intestinal permeability more than twofold and took effect in as little as two hours. To examine the raspberry-derived therapeutic in a diseased animal model, dextran sodium sulfate was used to induce colitis (a form of IBD) in mice. Rectally administered raspberry extract reduced the intestinal permeability of diseased mice more than twofold compared to diseased mice receiving only PBS. Importantly, raspberry extract is not associated with the side effects of convention IBD treatments because the body is already well equipped to handle the metabolites in raspberries. These results demonstrate the potential of a naturally derived raspberry therapeutic to treat IBD by decreasing the permeability of the intestinal barrier, a novel approach that addresses the source of the disease, a leaky gut, rather than treating symptoms.

1. Kaplan, G. G. (2015). The global burden of IBD: from 2015 to 2025. Nature Reviews Gastroenterology and Hepatology, 720-727.
2. Strober, W., Fuss, I., & Mannon, P. (2007). The fundemental basis of inflammatory bowel disease. The Journal of Clinical Investigation, 514-521.
3. Shen, L., Weber, C. R., Raleigh, D. R., Yu, D., & Turner, J. R. (2011). Tight Junction Pore and Leak Pathways: A Dynamic Duo. Annual Review of Physiology, 283-309.
4. Michielan, A., & D'Inca, R. (2015). Intestinal Permeability in Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Pathogenesis, Clinical Evaluation, and Therapy of Leaky Gut. Mediators of Inflammation, 1-10.
5. Moura, F. A., de Andrade, K. Q., dos Santos, J. C., Araujo, O. R., & Goulart, M. O. (2015). Antioxidant Therapy for treatment of inflammatory bowel disease: Does it work? Redox Biology, 617-639.