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Overweight and obesity in children with newly diagnosed inflammatory bowel disease
Aleksandra Pituch-Zdanowska1, Aleksandra Banaszkiewicz1, Marcin Dziekiewicz1
1Department of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, Medical University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland.
Insights
Overweight and obesity affect 8.4% of newly diagnosed pediatric inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients, with higher rates in ulcerative colitis (UC) than Crohn
Area of Science:
- Pediatric gastroenterology
- Inflammatory bowel disease research
- Obesity and metabolic health in children
Background:
- Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) encompasses Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC).
- Traditionally, pediatric IBD patients are associated with malnutrition and underweight conditions.
- Emerging data suggests a potential shift in the nutritional status of children diagnosed with IBD.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine the prevalence of overweight and obesity among children diagnosed with IBD.
- To compare the prevalence of overweight and obesity between pediatric Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis patients at diagnosis.
Main Methods:
- Multicenter retrospective study of newly diagnosed pediatric IBD patients (2005-2013).
- Utilized Porto criteria for IBD diagnosis and reviewed hospital admission records.
- Defined overweight (≥85th BMI percentile) and obesity (≥95th BMI percentile) using BMI-for-age and gender charts.
Main Results:
- 675 children with IBD (368 CD, 307 UC) were analyzed.
- Overall prevalence of overweight and obesity was 8.4% at diagnosis.
- Overweight/obesity prevalence was significantly higher in ulcerative colitis (UC) patients (13.36%) compared to Crohn's disease (CD) patients (4.35%).
- Patients with UC had a 3.5 times higher risk of being overweight or obese compared to CD patients.
Conclusions:
- A significant proportion of newly diagnosed pediatric IBD patients are overweight or obese, challenging the traditional view of malnutrition.
- Ulcerative colitis patients exhibit a higher prevalence of overweight and obesity at diagnosis compared to Crohn's disease patients.
- This highlights the need to consider overweight and obesity as potential comorbidities in pediatric IBD at the time of diagnosis.
Purpose:
Determination of overweight and obesity prevalence in children with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) at the time of diagnosis.
Material And Methods:
This was a multicenter retrospective study. The study group consisted of children with new cases of IBD diagnosed in 2005-2013 according to the Porto criteria. Hospital admission records were reviewed for demographic and clinical characteristics. BMI-for-age and gender percentile charts were used to define overweight as ≥85th BMI percentile and obesity as ≥95th BMI percentile.
Results:
675 patients were evaluated: 368 with Crohn's disease (CD) and 307 with ulcerative colitis (UC). Of these, 54.8% were boys and 45.2% were girls. There were no statistically significant differences in age, weight, height and disease activity between the CD and UC patients. The UC patients had higher BMI values than the CD patients. The prevalence of overweight and obesity was higher in the UC than the CD patients (4.89% CI95 2.76-7.93 vs. 2.45% CI95 1.12-4.59 and 8.47% CI95 5.61-12.16 vs. 1.9% CI95 0.77-3.88, respectively); the differences were statistically significant (-2.44% CI95 -5.45 to 0.49 and -6.57% CI95 -10 to -3.1, respectively). The risk of overweight/obesity was 3.5 times higher for patients with UC (OR=0.272, CI95 0.14-0.49, p=0.0004).
Conclusions:
The prevalence of overweight and obesity in newly diagnosed children with IBD was 8.4% and was higher in patients with UC than in patients with CD. The results of this study have shown that not only malnourished children may suffer from IBD but also children who are overweight or obese at the time of diagnosis.
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