A study has discovered that obesity in adults increases risk of inflammatory bowel disease or specifically known as Crohn’s disease or CD but not ulcerative colitis or UC.
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Research has utilized the data from 5 prospective cohorts
with complete anthropometric data, which included body mass index or BMI and waist-hip-ratio
or WHR and other lifestyle factors. Experts determined diagnoses of CD and UC through
medical records or by utilizing validated definitions.
There was a total of 601,009 individuals with age
range of 18-98 years old that comprised the study population. There were 563
incident cases of CD and 1,047 incident cases of UC recorded over 10,110,018
person-years of follow-up.
Using the multivariable cox regression analysis, it
showed that compared with individuals who had normal BMI (18.5 to <25kg/m2),
those with obesity (BMI>30kg/m2) had an elevated risk of CD.
For each 5kg/m2 increment in baseline BMI, contributed
to a 16% increase in the risk of Crohn’s disease. Similarly, each 5kg/m2
increment in early adulthood BMI (age 18-20 years) was correlated with a 22%
risk increase.
However, a high waist-hip-ratio was correlated with an
elevated risk of Crohn’s disease that did not reach statistical significance.
Meanwhile, UC or ulcerative colitis revealed no
correlation with any measures of obesity in this particular study.
Source: Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol
2021;doi:10.1016/j.cgh.2021.06.049