[Investigating the efficacy of nutrition therapy for outpatients with inflammatory bowel disease]

Inflammatory bowel diseases can cause malnutrition (due to inflammatory cytokine production, catabolic states after surgery, restricted diet), which is difficult to treat by nutritional therapy.

Investigating the efficacy of nutrition therapy.

Combined malnutrition risk screening (questionnaires and body composition analysis), at the beginning of the research and after a 1 year period.

205 patients were screened, 82 were malnourished. A total of 44 received nutritional intervention for 1 year, for 45% dietary management was satisfactory, 50% needed oral nutritional supplements and 5% received home parenteral nutrition. These interventions reduced the number of patients considered by both measuring methods in high risk from 31 to 21, increased the body weight and fat-free mass in 8 and 9 cases significantly (i.e., with more than 10%), and improved the indices as well (ΔBMI: +1.3 kg/m², p = 0.035 s., ΔFFMI: +0.5 kg/m², p = 0.296 n.s.). The main limitations of our research are the relatively low number of cases and the mono-centric involvement.

We recommend combined malnutrition risk screening for all patients with inflammatory bowel disease due to the high risk of malnutrition, and follow-up of the malnourished patients to monitor the efficacy of their nutrition therapy. Orv Hetil. 2017; 158(19): 731-739.