Letter to the Editor
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 14, 2024; 30(22): 2923-2926
Published online Jun 14, 2024. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v30.i22.2923
Interaction between inflammatory bowel disease, physical activity, and myokines: Assessment of serum irisin levels
Marwan SM Al-Nimer
Marwan SM Al-Nimer, Department of Therapeutics and Clinical Pharmacology, College of Medicine, University of Diyala, Baqubah 32001, Iraq
Author contributions: Al-Nimer MS contributed to writing and editing of the manuscript; Al-Nimer MS fully contributed the Letter to the Editor.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: Https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Marwan SM Al-Nimer, MBChB, MD, PhD, Professor Emerita, Department of Therapeutics and Clinical Pharmacology, College of Medicine, University of Diyala, University Street, Baqubah 32001, Iraq. marwanalnimer@yahoo.com
Received: March 13, 2024
Revised: April 30, 2024
Accepted: May 20, 2024
Published online: June 14, 2024
Processing time: 84 Days and 22 Hours
Abstract

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, showed a wide spectrum of intestinal and extra-intestinal manifestations, which rendered the patients physically inactive and impaired their quality of life. It has been found that physical activity is a non-pharmacological intervention that improves the quality of life for those patients. Irisin is one member of the myokines secreted by muscle contraction during exercise and could be used as an anti-inflammatory biomarker in assessing the physical activity of IBD patients. In addition, experimental studies showed that exogenous irisin significantly decreased the inflammatory markers and the histological changes of the intestinal mucosa observed in experimental colitis. Furthermore, irisin produces changes in the diversity of the microbiota. Therefore, endogenous or exogenous irisin, via its anti-inflammatory effects, will improve the health of IBD patients and will limit the barriers to physical activity in patients with IBD.

Keywords: Irisin, Inflammatory bowel disease, Physical activity, Myokines, Prognostic marker

Core Tip: Irisin is a sports hormone secreted with muscle contraction and serves as an anti-‎inflammatory biomarker as well as attenuating the intestinal microbiota ‎diversity. Low serum levels of irisin were observed in patients with ulcerative colitis, ‎which can be increased with physical activity.‎ Physical activity is useful in patients presented with extra-intestinal manifestations of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).‎ Exogenous irisin may overcome the barriers of physical activity in IBD, ‎producing beneficial anti-inflammatory effects and attenuating the microbiota ‎diversity.‎