Evaluation of the Effects of the Tritordeum-Based Diet Compared to the Low-FODMAPs Diet on the Fecal Metabolome of IBS-D Patients: A Preliminary Investigation

Since irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)—a common gastrointestinal (GI) disorder—still lacks effective therapy, a nutritional approach may represent a practical alternative. Different reports demonstrated that a low-fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols (FODMAPs) diet (LFD) reduces symptoms in IBS with diarrhea (IBS-D) patients, also inducing beneficial pathophysiological and biochemical modifications. More recently, diets with alternative cereals having a different gluten composition, such as tritordeum, have also been considered (TBD). We investigated the impact of TBD and LFD on the fecal metabolome composition in 38 IBS-D patients randomly allocated to the two diets for 12 weeks. Summarily, at baseline, the profile of fecal volatile organic compounds (VOCs) of IBS-D patients was not significantly different in the two groups. After treatment, significant changes were observed in the two groups regarding the VOCs content since some of them increased in the TBD group (namely, decanoic acid), whereas others (i.e., nonanal and ethanol) increased in the LFD one. Further, at baseline, short-chain fatty acids were positively related to inflammation and showed a significant decreasing trend after both diets compared to baseline values (namely, acetic and propanoic acid). Preliminary results from this pilot study suggest a potential positive intervention of TBD and LFD affecting the fecal metabolome composition in IBS-D patients.