Can a Healthy Lifestyle reduce Flare Risk in IBD?
Research summary of a recently published paper: Healthy Lifestyle Is a Protective Factor from Moderate and Severe Relapses and Steroid Use in Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Prospective Cohort Study
Background
A healthy lifestyle, including good adherence to a Mediterranean diet (MD) and regular physical exercise, may be an important factor during the course of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
Aim of the study
To determine whether adherence to MD, physical activity, and the combination of both can impact on IBD course.
Who was studied and what did they do?
693 IBD patients were followed for a median of 27 months (over 2 years).
Healthy lifestyle was considered to be a proper adherence to both MD and an active lifestyle.
Each patient completed a survey to assess their adherence to the MD and physical activity. Relapse during follow-up, severity of relapses, need for systemic steroids, and therapy changes were recorded.
What did they find?
Patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) were more adherent to healthy lifestyle than patients with Crohn’s disease.
Healthy lifestyle was associated with LOWER RISK of moderate and severe relapses and steroids use in IBD.
Conclusion
Healthy lifestyle may have a favourable influence on promoting a milder disease course, and thus should be a crucial part of clinical management of patients with IBD.
Limitations
Its important to note that this study was a prospective cohort study. This an observation of people in real life without changing their behaviour. This type of study helps scientists understand how certain habits or exposures affect health over time, however it has its limitations.
Although prospective cohort studies are one of the strongest observational designs for assessing causal relationships, they are still not intervention trials (like randomised controlled trials (RCT’s)) so we have to be careful in drawing strong conclusions about cause and effect.
This study does, however, add to the growing body of evidence we have (including intervention trials) showing the positive effects of the MD in IBD.
If you would like support with your IBD, we can help you.
We are a nutrition and dietetics clinic specialising providing exceptional care to improve the quality of life of people living with IBD. We bring clarity around food and IBD and remove uncertainty and fear around food.
Our IBD specialist Nutritionist (Clemmie) and specialist gastroenterology and IBD Dietician (Jess) both have IBD too so ‘get it’ and are so passionate about helping others with IBD.
If you would like support with your IBD please book a free initial call via the button below so we can find out more about you, discuss how we can help and take you through our appointment options.
Reference
Sandra García-Mateo, Samuel Jesús Martínez-Domínguez, Carla Jerusalén Gargallo-Puyuelo, Beatriz Gallego, Erika Alfambra, María Escuin, Sergio García-Mateo, Julia López, Fernando Gomollón, Healthy Lifestyle Is a Protective Factor from Moderate and Severe Relapses and Steroid Use in Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Prospective Cohort Study, Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, Volume 31, Issue 1, January 2025.
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