Health benefits of Montmorency tart cherry juice supplementation in adults with mild to moderate Ulcerative Colitis; A placebo randomized controlled trial.

Abstract

Aims: Ulcerative colitis (UC) significantly impacts individuals' self-perception, body image, and overall quality of life; while also imposing considerable economic costs. These challenges high-light the necessity for complementary therapeutic strategies with reduced adverse effects to support conventional pharmacological treatments. Among natural interventions, Montmorency tart cherries, noted for their high anthocyanin content have emerged as a natural an-ti-inflammatory agent for UC. The current trial aimed to investigate the effects of Montmorency tart cherry compared to placebo in patients with mild to moderate UC.
Materials & methods: Thirty-five patients with UC were randomly assigned to receive either placebo or Montmorency tart cherry of which they drank 60 mL per day for 6-weeks. The primary outcome, health related quality of life, measured via the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Quality of Life Questionnaire (IBDQ), and secondary measures, including other health-related question-naires, blood biomarkers and faecal samples, were measured before and after the intervention. Linear mixed-effects models were adopted to contrast the changes from baseline to 6-weeks be-tween trial arms. Effect sizes were calculated using Cohen’s d.
Results: There were significantly greater improvements in IBDQ (22.61 (95% CI = 5.24 to 39.99) d = 0.90) and simple clinical colitis activity index (− 3.98 (95% CI = − 6.69 to – 1.28) d = − 1.01) in the tart cherry trial arm compared to placebo. In addition, reductions in faecal calprotectin levels were significantly greater in the tart cherry trial arm compared to placebo (− 136.17 µg/g (95% CI = − -258.06 to – 4.28) d = − 1.14). Loss to follow-up (N=1) and adverse events (N=1) were low and compliance was very high in the tart cherry (95.8%) trial arm.
Conclusions: Given the profoundly negative effects of UC on health-related quality of life and its fiscal implications for global healthcare systems; this trial indicates that twice-daily tart cherry supplementation can improve IBD-related quality of life as well as severity of symptoms, and therefore may be important in the management of UC.