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Clinical Nutrition

Body composition assessment of Crohn’s outpatients and comparison with gender- and age-specific multiple matched control pairs

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 71, pages 1246–1250 (2017)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Background/Objectives:

Routine clinical care for Crohn’s disease (CD) outpatients does not cover the assessment of body composition (BC); although this disease (because of inflammation, surgeries, lack of physical activity and appetite) may have a severe impact on lean body mass. The main aims of this prospective research were to assess the nutritional status of the patients and to compare their data with apparently healthy gender- and age-specific matched control pairs.

Subjects/Methods:

Overall, 136 CD patients and 1752 apparently healthy people were involved in the study. All participants were measured by the same bioelectrical impedance analyser.

Results:

Using body mass index (BMI) and fat-free mass index (FFMI) as the markers of nutritional status, we found low BMI for 21% of the patients and low FFMI for 30% of them. Low BMI values were not gender specific, but substantially more females had low FFMI values. Low BMI was diagnosed in the patients’ vs the control group for 21 vs 4% for men and 21 vs 2% for women; whereas low FFMI was diagnosed for 25 vs 5% for men and 36 vs 14% for women. Significant differences were found between patients’ and control groups (median BMI: 22.0 vs 25.1 kg/m2, P<0.0001; FFMI: 17.3 vs 18.4 kg/m2, P=0.0044).

Conclusions:

This study confirmed the higher prevalence of low FFMI than that of low BMI among the subjects. We recommend implementing the assessment of BC into routine clinical care to diagnose low FFMI and to start intervention in time.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to express our thanks to Sarolta Dakó, Zsolt Mátyás Piri, Balázs Katona providing help in data collection, and to William Gesztes for providing language help as a native English speaker. None of the authors receive funding for this study. The authors do not have a relationship with the manufacturers of BC analysers and did not receive funding to conduct this research.

Author contributions

AM was responsible for study concept, design, assembly, measuring the patients with body composition analyser, data collection, data interpretation and writing the manuscript. ÁACs was responsible for study concept, design, assembly, data collection, interpretation and writing the manuscript. IK was responsible for measuring the apparently healthy subjects with body composition analyser, data collection. ÁDA was responsible for data cleaning, analysis and interpretation. EP was responsible for study concept and data interpretation. MP was responsible for study concept, assembly, data interpretation and approved the final version of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of PhD Studies, Doctoral School of Pathological Sciences, Health Sciences Research,

    A Molnár

  2. , Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary

    A Molnár

  3. 2nd Department of Medicine, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary

    Á A Csontos & P Miheller

  4. Hungarian Dietetic Association, Budapest, Hungary

    I Kovács

  5. Department of Biomathematics and Informatics, Faculty of Veterinary Science, Szent István University, Budapest, Hungary

    Á D Anton

  6. Department of Dietetics and Nutrition Sciences,

    E Pálfi

  7. , Faculty of Health Sciences, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary

    E Pálfi

Authors
  1. A Molnár
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  2. Á A Csontos
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to P Miheller.

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Molnár, A., Csontos, Á., Kovács, I. et al. Body composition assessment of Crohn’s outpatients and comparison with gender- and age-specific multiple matched control pairs. Eur J Clin Nutr 71, 1246–1250 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/ejcn.2017.99

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