Researchers at Duke University School of Medicine have found that stimulating a key nerve in the body may help reduce the gut inflammation seen in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
This new approach could offer a new way to treat IBD by targeting the body’s nervous system instead of just managing symptoms.
The study, led by Dr. Luis Ulloa and Dr. Wei Yang and published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, focused on the vagus nerve — a major nerve that connects the brain and the gut.
By using electrical stimulation on this nerve in stressed mice with colitis (a type of IBD), researchers were able to reduce inflammation, ease symptoms, and improve survival rates.
The key to this process is something called SUMOylation, a cellular process that helps regulate how the immune system responds to stress and inflammation.
The researchers found that stimulating the vagus nerve slowed down SUMOylation, which in turn reduced the harmful immune cell activity that leads to gut inflammation. They also discovered that using a drug to block SUMOylation had a similar effect.
“This is an exciting finding,” said Dr. Yang. “Blocking SUMOylation worked just like vagus nerve stimulation — both improved the symptoms of colitis in our mouse models.”
Inflammatory bowel disease, which includes ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, affects nearly 7 million people around the world. These diseases cause long-term inflammation in the digestive system and can lead to serious health problems. Over the past 15 years, IBD cases have increased by 50%, making it a growing health concern.
Current treatments for IBD aim to reduce inflammation, but they don’t always work for everyone and often come with serious side effects. Over time, many patients stop responding to their medications, leading to relapses and worsening symptoms.
Stress is also known to make IBD symptoms worse. In fact, some experts believe ulcerative colitis may have a strong connection to mental stress. That’s where the vagus nerve comes in.
This nerve is a key part of the parasympathetic nervous system — the part of the body that helps calm us down. When the vagus nerve is stimulated, it can help the body return to a more relaxed, balanced state.
“Stimulating the vagus nerve helped to cancel out the effects of stress and restore normal body function,” said Dr. Ulloa. “We’ve known that the vagus nerve plays a role in reducing inflammation, but now we’ve shown that it works by controlling SUMOylation.”
The researchers caution that not all patients may benefit in the same way, and more research is needed to understand how these findings can be applied to humans.
This new treatment approach is part of a growing field known as bioelectronic medicine, where electrical stimulation is used to manage chronic inflammation in diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease.
For more information about gut health, please see recent studies about the crucial link between diet, gut health, and the immune system and results showing that Low-gluten, high-fiber diets boost gut health and weight loss.
For more information about gut health, please see recent studies about Navigating inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) with diet and results showing that Mycoprotein in diet may reduce risk of bowel cancer and improve gut health.
The study is published in Science Translational Medicine.
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