Scientists have found that food coloring such as lure red and sunset yellow can promote the occurrence of inflammatory bowel disease

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic nonspecific inflammatory disease of the intestine, and its incidence tends to increase year by year. Genetic and environmental factors play an important role in the occurrence and development of inflammatory bowel disease, but the pathogenic mechanism caused by environmental factors is not well understood.

Recently, a research team at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York found that under certain conditions, food coloring can promote the occurrence of inflammatory bowel disease. The study was published in the journal Cell Metabolism under the title: Food colorants metabolized by commensal bacteria promote colitis in mice with dysregulated expression of interleukin-23.

The inflammatory factor IL-23 has been found to play a key role in the development of inflammatory bowel disease. The researchers first constructed a mouse model in which IL-23 expression was active, in which mice with active IL-23 expression did not develop colitis when fed normal food, and mice with active IL-23 expression developed severe colitis when fed specific foods containing lured red pigment, and mice fed IL-23 inactive mice with lured red pigment did not develop colitis. Further studies found that lure-induced colitis relies on gut microbes, with Bacteroides ovaria and Enterococcus faecalis (E. faecalis) in the gut producing a metabolite called ANSA-Na by metabolizing lure-induced red pigment, which promotes the development of colitis. It was found that sunset yellow pigment, which is also an azo dye, also has a similar mechanism of action.

This study shows that in the case of the inflammatory factor IL-23 active, tempting food colors such as red and sunset yellow will promote the development of colitis in mice. This suggests that food coloring may be one of the environmental factors that contribute to the occurrence of inflammatory bowel disease.

Thesis link: https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(21)00181-9#%20