WEDNESDAY, July 9, 2025 (HealthDay News) — A healthy plant-based diet might protect people from inflammatory bowel diseases, a new study says.

People noshing healthy plant-based foods had a 14% lower risk of Crohn’s disease and an 8% lower risk of ulcerative colitis, researchers found.

On the other hand, an unhealthy diet containing more animal fats and vegetable oils was associated with a 15% increased risk of Crohn’s disease, results show.

“Our research indicates that a healthy plant-based diet may protect against inflammatory bowel disease, with its anti-inflammatory properties playing a key role,” senior researcher Dr. Zhe Shen of the Zhejiang University School of Medicine in China said in a news release.

For the study, researchers tracked more than 143,000 people participating in the UK Biobank, a large-scale health research project among residents of the United Kingdom. As part of the project, patients filled out diet questionnaires.

During an average 14.5 years of follow-up, more than 1,000 people developed inflammatory bowel disease, researchers found.

Researchers graded participants’ diet based on their intake of healthy plant foods, unhealthy plant foods, and animal products.

Analysis showed that higher intake of fruits and vegetables accounted for part of the lower risk for Crohn’s disease, researchers said.

Blood tests from participants indicate that the anti-inflammatory properties of plant-based foods might explain this protection, researchers said.

“These findings underscore the beneficial association between healthy plant-based diets and reduced risk of ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease,” researchers concluded. “They provide important insights for the development of dietary guidelines aimed at preventing IBD.”

The new study appears in the journal Molecular Nutrition & Food Research.

More information

The Mayo Clinic has more on inflammatory bowel disease.

SOURCES: Wiley, news release, July 9, 2025; Molecular Nutrition & Food Research, 2025