Overweight, obesity do not worsen disease activity for children with IBD

In children with newly diagnosed inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), overweight and obese status are not associated with worse disease activity at 1 year after diagnosis compared with normal weight, results of a study have shown.

A retrospective cohort study was conducted using the ImproveCareNow Network, a multicentre registry of children with IBD. The researchers included children with newly diagnosed Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) enrolled in ImproveCareNow Network from September 2006 to December 2018 who had at least one follow-up visit 12‒18 months after diagnosis.

Patients were categorized based on their weight: normal weight, overweight, or obese. Remission at 1 year based on physician’s global assessment (PGA) was the primary outcome. Secondary ones included short paediatric CD activity index and paediatric UC activity index.

A total of 4,972 children were included, of which 70 percent had CD. Obese and overweight children with CD showed no worse disease activity at 1 year based on PGA than those with normal weight.

However, obese children had a modestly worse disease activity based on short paediatric CD activity index (obese vs normal weight: inactive 43 percent vs 58 percent, mild 48 percent vs 36 percent, and moderate-to-severe 9 percent vs 7 percent; p<0.01).

For children with UC, no differences were noted in disease activity at 1 year based on PGA or paediatric UC activity index. These findings were consistent in logistic regression.