01/27/2026
Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease that affects one in 1,000 children worldwide. There is currently no cure, with treatment focused primarily on symptom management and preventing complications. With a goal to understand how foods in the diet affect the balance of bacteria in our gut, the team has designed a dietary intervention using fiber and anthocyanins—powerful antioxidants found in fruits and vegetables that are known to prevent inflammation.
Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a type of chronic inflammatory bowel disease that affects some 80,000 children in the United States and an estimated one in 1,000 children worldwide. Most frequently diagnosed in young people between the ages of 13 and 20, UC causes a variety of troubling symptoms, including abdominal pain and discomfort, diarrhea, and rectal bleeding. There is currently no cure for the condition, with treatment focused primarily on symptom management and preventing long-term complications such as colorectal cancer and the need for hospitalizations and surgeries. For many children and adults with UC, quality of life is impacted due to symptoms that can be difficult to manage away from home.
Lavanya Reddivari, PhD, associate professor of food science at Purdue University, specializes in developing food-based strategies to prevent chronic diseases like UC, Crohn’s disease and colon cancer. Her current research involves screening and selecting fibers and fiber mixes to support good bacteria in a healthy gut. While fiber consumption is beneficial for gut health and research suggests it may be helpful in managing UC, many patients with ulcerative colitis report GI discomfort when consuming certain fibers. In addition to choosing fibers that are well tolerated, Dr. Reddivari’s research focuses on the benefits of mixing fiber with anthocyanins, which are powerful antioxidants. Known for preventing inflammation, anthocyanins are the natural substances that give fruits and vegetables, including berries, cherries, grapes, eggplant and cabbage, their pigmentation.
“Fiber consumption is very beneficial in improving the gut environment and then by adding the anthocyanins, we can improve the fiber fermentation in ulcerative colitis,” said Dr. Reddivari, the first researcher to study fibers in combination with anthocyanins. “Ultimately, we are trying to increase the time between flare-ups and keep the disease in remission for longer periods of time.”
To date, Dr. Reddivari’s studies, both in cell culture and laboratory models, have shown that the combination of fiber and anthocyanins works better in improving microbial diversity than either fibers or anthocyanins alone. Based on these preliminary findings, her Heartland-funded research takes the analysis a step further through a dietary intervention with pediatric patients who have UC.
To facilitate the 10-week study, Dr. Reddivari is collaborating with Tina Zhang, MD, PhD, a pediatric gastroenterologist at Riley Children’s Health and assistant professor of clinical pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine. Dr. Zhang specializes in the care of children with inflammatory bowel disease. The team’s intervention, conducted with 32 children and young adults ages 12 years and older, will use edible fibers and whole freeze-dried, anthocyanin-rich fruits specifically formulated to be well tolerated by the patients. Half of the patients will receive only the fibers, and the other half will receive the fibers mixed with anthocyanin. Results from the patient study, along with additional laboratory research, will determine how the combination affects gut bacteria in patients with UC.
“We hope the intervention will show an improvement in the gut environment that delays the onset of flare-ups,” Dr. Reddivari said. “I’m very excited about the opportunity we may have with this dietary supplementation to improve the quality of life for these young individuals with UC.”
A Project of the Heartland Children’s Nutrition Collaborative
This work is made possible through a generous gift to the Riley Children’s Foundation from the Ricks Family Foundation, led by Riley physician Christina Ricks, MD, and her husband David A. Ricks. Their support fuels the Heartland Children’s Nutrition Collaborative—a joint effort between the IU School of Medicine Department of Pediatrics and Purdue’s Department of Food Science—to uncover how early‑life nutrition can influence lifelong health outcomes.