Complementary and Alternative Medicine Strategies for Therapeutic Gut Microbiota Modulation in Inflammatory Bowel Disease and their Next-Generation Approaches

The human gut microbiome exerts a major impact on human health and disease, and therapeutic gut microbiota modulation is now a well advocated strategy in the management of many diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Scientific and clinical evidence in support of complementary and alternative medicine, in targeting intestinal dysbiosis among patients with IBD or other disorders, has increased dramatically over the past years. Delivery of artificial stool replacements for fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) could provide an effective, safer alternative to that of human donor stool. Nevertheless, optimum timing of FMT administration in IBD remains unexplored, and future investigations are essential.