Diet Intake After Diet Modification Intervention in Women With Fecal Incontinence

Older women with fecal incontinence (FI) who underwent diet modification intervention (DMI) showed significant improvement in FI symptoms. It is unclear whether improvement in symptoms was associated with objective changes in dietary intake quality.

The primary aim was to determine if improvement in overall dietary intake quality was associated with improvement in FI symptoms. Our secondary aim was to evaluate whether individual food group consumption changes were associated with changes in FI symptoms.

This was an ancillary analysis of a prospective cohort study of women aged 65 years and older with FI who underwent DMI. Seven-day diet-and-bowel diaries at baseline and 6 weeks after DMI were examined for how frequently participants consumed food categories and FI triggers. Adherence to recommended dietary guidelines was assessed between 2 and 4 weeks using a 24-hour diet recall. Baseline and postintervention consumption were compared using the Wilcoxon signed rank test. Spearman correlation was used to compare dietary intake changes with FI symptom changes.

Twenty-four women completed the 24-hour diet recalls, and 17 women completed the 7-day diet-and-bowel diaries at baseline and 6 weeks. More participants who were adherent had clinically significant improvement in symptoms compared with those who were not adherent (70% vs 30%, P =0.57). Decreased consumption of saturated fats ( P =0.01) and fried foods ( P <0.001) was associated with improvement in FI symptoms.

In this small population, overall dietary intake quality was not associated with change in FI symptom improvement. Decreased intake of saturated fat and fried food was associated with FI symptom improvement.