Dr. Linda Wykes

For children with Inflammatory Bowel Disease, running around at recess can be a challenge. Their aching stomachs decrease their appetites, causing their energy levels to plummet. An estimated 170,000 Canadians suffer from Inflammatory Bowel Disease, a chronic inflammation of the digestive system that includes Crohn’s disease and Colitis1. Of the new cases diagnosed each year, at least 10% are children under the age of sixteen.

When Inflammatory Bowel Disease strikes children, it causes sudden uncontrolled inflammation that starts in their guts, explains Linda Wykes, Associate Professor in the School of Dietetics and Human Nutrition at McGill University. This inflammation sends signals to their brains to eat less, while their persistent stomach pain causes them to avoid certain foods, leading to malnourishment. Their bodies break down more muscle proteins than usual, their immune systems weaken and inflammation increases. This cyclic response to inflammation takes precedence over typical healthy metabolic activities, like building muscle and bone mass. Children with Inflammatory Bowel Disease are often malnourished, ultimately leading to stunted growth and development.

Wykes wants to devise nutritional therapies that will prevent malnutrition in children with Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Many of the drugs given to treat Inflammatory Bowel Disease can cause anorexia or nausea. The long term use of some of these drugs may lead to increased risks of infections, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, or delayed growth. “We’d like to take patients off the heavy-duty drugs,” Wykes says. “…and have them rely more on nutritional therapy.”

To understand the relationship between inflammation and malnutrition, Wykes developed a piglet model of Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Piglets are ideal to study, because their physiology and metabolism are similar to those of children. Wykes found that even piglets with inflamed colons did well when they were well-nourished, suggesting proper nutrition is key to preventing diminished growth in children with Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

Wykes is testing the effects of nutritional therapies on these piglets with inflamed colons. These therapies include omega-3 fatty acids (essential nutrients that cannot be synthesized by the body) and probiotics (bacteria and yeasts that might be beneficial to health). In the future, she hopes the most promising therapies from the piglet studies will help prevent malnourishment in children with Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

Colorectal cancer surgery patients also suffer from malnourishment. Often, they must fast for several days before surgery. Surgery itself perpetuates malnourishment in these patients. During surgery, pain signals are sent to the brain, inducing a hormonal response that leads to a decreased sensitivity to insulin and an increased breakdown of muscle proteins for energy. Wykes, in collaboration with anesthesiologists Franco Carli and Thomas Schricker from the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University, found that giving epidural analgesia and nutritional support to patients before and during surgery stops the hormonal response to surgery by inhibiting the transmission of pain signals to the brain and preventing malnourishment during surgery. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” says Wykes. When these treatments are administered together, patients recover more quickly.

Wykes and her team are collaborating with another McGill anesthesiologist Ralph Latterman, to study nutritional support and pain relief for the elderly and for people with Type II Diabetes.

Wykes, Associate Professor and William Dawson Scholar at McGill University, has a PhD in Nutritional Sciences from the University of Toronto. She is funded by the National Science and Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and has recently won two awards for her research: The Bio-Serv Award for Research Using Animals as Models (American Society for Nutrition) and the Centrum Foundation New Scientist Award (Canadian Society for Nutritional Sciences).

Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of Canada website

Kirsten Dorans is a McGill WARM-SPARK writer.

For further information, please contact Dr. Linda Wykes using the Email contact form or by phone at 514 398-7843