BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: epidemiological studies that assess the association of dietary total carbohydrate intake and inflammatory bowel disease risk (IBD) have yielded controversial results. Therefore, this study of various epidemiological studies was conducted in order to explore this relationship. METHODS: a systematic literature search of the PubMed, Embase, Web of Science and Medline databases was performed up to September 2017. Cohort, case-control or cross-sectional design studies were included that reported the association of dietary carbohydrate intake and IBD risk. Summary odds ratio (OR) and the corresponding 95% CI were calculated using the random effects model. RESULTS: a total of eight articles with 15 individual studies that included 1,361 cases were eligible according to the inclusion criteria. Dietary carbohydrate intake had a non-significant relationship with the risk of IBD (OR = 1.091, 95% CI = 0.817-1.455, I2 = 31.6%, pfor heterogeneity = 0.116). The pooled OR and 95% CI for ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD) with regard to dietary carbohydrate intake was 1.167 (0.777-1.752) and 1.010 (0.630-1.618), respectively. These associations were also non-significant in both European and Asia populations. CONCLUSIONS: a higher dietary total carbohydrate intake had a non-significant relationship with IBD risk. Further studies with large populations are needed to verify this relationship.