IMAGINE

IMAGINE: Inflammation, Microbiome and Alimentation: Gastrointestinal and Neuropsychiatric Effects

Maritime Principal Investigator:
Anthony Otley, MD, MSc, FRCPC
Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Pediatrics
IWK Health Centre and Dalhousie University

Study sponsors: The IMAGINE-SPOR chronic disease network is funded by Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) through its Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research (SPOR) as a network in chronic disease.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Canadians who are four years old or older
• Diagnosed with IBS or IBD (including Crohn’s disease and Ulcerative Colitis) by a physician

OR

• Considered ‘healthy’ for the study because they do not have ongoing GI symptoms caused by IBS or IBD. These participants are called Control Participants.

Exclusion criteria:

• Past gastrointestinal bypass surgery or major bowel resections unrelated to Crohn’s disease

• Major concurrent illness such as chronic kidney disease, chronic liver disease other than primary sclerosing cholangitis, chronic immune disease unrelated to IBD
• If you have an active eating disorder such anorexia nervosa or bulimia.
• If you have a diagnosis of schizophrenia

• If you cannot communicate in either French or English

Purpose: IMAGINE is a national collaboration of patients and scientists that will look at how gut bacteria and diet cause inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) as well as anxiety and depression associated with these disorders.

The network will recruit a total of 8,000 patients. There will 2,000 patients from each category, Crohn’s disease (CD), ulcerative colitis (UC), IBS, and an age and gender matched healthy control group without significant gastrointestinal symptoms. The network will receive data from participants annually, generating comparisons of gut microbiome and metabolomics profiles of those suffering from CD, UC and IBS.