Table 3. A decrease in colonic bacterial diversity is associated with an increase in inflammatory cytokines. The expression of colonic IL-1β and IL-8 negatively correlate with colonic bacterial diversity as assessed by Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient.

Bacterial α diversity	IL-1β	IL-8	IL18	TNF-α
Spearman r	-0.8286	-0.7714	-0.2571	-0.4857
p value	0.0583	0.1028	0.6583	0.3556