[Adjuvant therapy with elemental diet in chronic inflammatory intestinal diseases. Comparative study]

26 in-patients (17 with Crohn's disease, 9 with ulcerative colitis) were given high-molecular (diet 1; 12 patients) or low-molecular (diet 2; 14 patients) elemental diets (6.3-12.6 MJ) additional to drug treatment previously given as out-patients. The activity index fell on both diets (on diet 1 from 253 to 83; diet 2 from 259 to 86), stool frequency decreased (on diet 1 from 7.1 to 0.9 per day; diet 2 from 5.6 to 2.0 per day), as did blood sedimentation rate (diet 1 from 57/80 to 30/51 mm; diet 2 from 56/80 to 23/45 mm). Body-weight, total protein, albumin and red blood corpuscles were not changed significantly. There was no significant difference between the two diet groups. The results raise the question of whether low-molecular elemental diet enriches the treatment of chronic inflammatory disease.