Fasting-Mimicking Diet Shows Benefit in Crohn's Disease

Nearly 70% of patients with mild-to-moderate Crohn's disease following a 5-day-per-month fasting-mimicking diet achieve a clinical response in a controlled trial.

Published on Mar. 6, 2026

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A short-term diet that mimics fasting significantly improved clinical symptoms and inflammatory biomarkers in adults with mild-to-moderate Crohn's disease (CD) in a randomized controlled trial. Nearly 70% of patients assigned to the fasting-mimicking diet (FMD) achieved a clinical response compared with fewer than half of control patients following their usual diet. The FMD has patients eat between about 700 and 1100 calories per day for 5 consecutive days per month and then following for their normal diet.

Why it matters

CD is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease affecting about 5 million people worldwide. About 20%-30% of patients with CD have a milder disease course with limited endoscopic inflammation and no stricturing or penetrating complications. Management options for these patients remain limited; except for corticosteroids, there are no FDA-approved medical therapies for mild CD. The potential benefits of FMD have not been investigated in CD, until now.

The details

Researchers randomly allocated 97 adults (median age, 45 years) with mild-to-moderate CD to either a FMD or continuation of their baseline diet. The 65 patients in the intervention group followed a plant-based, calorie-restricted FMD for 5 consecutive days per month over 3 months, consuming 1090 calories on day 1 and 725 calories on days 2-5, before resuming their usual diet for the remainder of each month. The 32 patients in the control group made no dietary changes and continued standard medical care.

  • The study was published online in Nature Medicine in March 2026.

The players

Sidhartha Sinha, MD

Assistant professor of gastroenterology and hepatology at the School of Medicine, Stanford University in Stanford, California, and senior author of the study.

Ashwin Ananthakrishnan, MBBS, MPH

Gastroenterologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, who provided commentary on the study.

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What they’re saying

“We were very pleasantly surprised that the majority of patients seemed to benefit from this diet. We noticed that even after just one FMD cycle, there were clinical benefits.”

— Sidhartha Sinha, MD, Assistant professor of gastroenterology and hepatology (Medscape Medical News)

“Fasting for any period of time can be challenging, but in our trial nearly 80% of participants adhered to all three 5-day cycles of the reduced calorie diet.”

— Sidhartha Sinha, MD, Assistant professor of gastroenterology and hepatology (Medscape Medical News)

“This is an important and well done study and there is biologic plausibility for why the FMD may be helpful in CD. The unanswered questions that follow are how does this compare to other dietary interventions that have been studied (or other medical therapies), how durable is the benefit, is there an endoscopic healing effect (shown in a subset here, but very small numbers), and whether it will have a benefit either alone (or in conjunction with advanced therapies) for more severe disease.”

— Ashwin Ananthakrishnan, MBBS, MPH, Gastroenterologist (Medscape Medical News)

What’s next

The judge in the case will decide on Tuesday whether or not to allow Walker Reed Quinn out on bail.

The takeaway

This case highlights growing concerns in the community about repeat offenders released on bail, raising questions about bail reform, public safety on SF streets, and if any special laws to govern autonomous vehicles in residential and commercial areas.