Nutritional aspect of pediatric inflammatory bowel disease: its clinical importance

Abstract

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic inflammatory disease mainly affecting the gastrointestinal tract. The incidence of the disease is rapidly increasing worldwide, and a number of patients are diagnosed during their childhood or adolescence. Aside from controlling the gastrointestinal symptoms, nutritional aspects such as growth, bone mineral density, anemia, micronutrient deficiency, hair loss, and diet should also be closely monitored and managed by the pediatric IBD team especially since the patients are in the development phase.

Keywords: Child; Inflammatory bowel disease; Nutrition status.

Fig. 1. The natural course of Inflammatory Bowel Disease accoring to age of disease onset. The disease phenotype was recorded according to the Montreal classification. CD, Crohn disease; B1, inflammatory phenotype without stricture formation and penetrating disease; B2, stricturing disease; B3, penetrating disease. Adapted from Gower-Rousseau et al. Dig Liver Dis 2013;45:89-94, with permission form Elsevier Ltd.

Fig. 2. A comparison of the differences (Δ) in nutritional status among patients with severe Crohn disease at the initial enrollment and following 1 year of treatment between patients treated with and without supportive short-term partial enteral nutrition (SPEN), respectively. ^*P<0.05. SPEN were performed for 1 month after induction treatment. Micronutrients levels improved in both groups with larger increases observed in the SPEN group. Adapted from Kang Y, et al. Gut Liver 2015;9:87-93, according to open access policy of Gut and Liver.