Dietary therapy is a common adjunctive treatment for Crohn's Disease (CD). However, previous studies had presented conflicting views on whether dairy products should be included in dietary therapy. This controversy may be due to confounding factors. Thus, this study employed Mendelian randomization (MR) to investigate the impact of 6 different dairy product consumption on CD. Additionally, it explored the mediating effect of 8 amino acid metabolism in this context. Three sensitivity analysis methods were employed to exclude horizontal pleiotropy and heterogeneity, ensuring the robustness of the conclusions. Ultimately, the study found that whole milk consumption can reduce the risk of CD (OR = 0.504, 95% CI: 0.324-0.784). Mediation analysis demonstrated that serum isoleucine (mediation effect: -0.265, 95%CI: -0.533 to -0.068) and valine (mediation effect: -0.083, 95%CI: -0.198 to -0.002) are influenced by full cream milk and modulate the onset of CD, with mediation effects accounting for 38.685% and 12.083%, respectively.
Keywords: Amino acid metabolism; Mediation analysis; Mendelian Randomization; Milk consumption.
© 2025, The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of the American Dairy Science Association®. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).