Research Article
Body Composition in Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis:
Correlation with Disease Severity and Duration
Dawesh P. Yadav,
1
Saurabh Kedia,
1
Kumble Seetharama Madhusudhan,
2
Sawan Bopanna,
1
Sandeep Goyal,
1
Saransh Jain,
1
Naval K. Vikram,
3
Raju Sharma,
2
Govind K. Makharia,
1
and Vineet Ahuja
1
1
Department of Gastroenterology and Human Nutrition, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi 110029, India
2
Department of Radiodiagnosis, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi 110029, India
3
Department of Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi 110029, India
Correspondence should be addressed to Vineet Ahuja; vineet.aiims@gmail.com
Received 13 June 2017; Revised 5 August 2017; Accepted 20 August 2017; Published 31 October 2017
Academic Editor: Maikel P. Peppelenbosch
Copyright © 2017 Dawesh P. Yadav et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution
License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly
cited.
Background. Results on body composition in Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) have been heterogeneous and are
lacking from Asia. Present study assessed body composition in CD/UC and correlated it with disease severity/duration. Methods.
Patients of CD/UC following between Dec 2014 and Dec 2015 who consented for bioimpedance analysis for body fat measurement
were included. Lean mass and fat-free mass index (FFMI) were calculated with standard formulae. Visceral fat area (VFA),
subcutaneous fat area (SCA), and visceral to subcutaneous fat ratio (VF/SC) were evaluated in CD patients on abdominal CT.
Results. Lean mass in CD ( = 44, mean age: 41.2 ± 15.8 years, 73% males) was signifcantly lower than UC ( = 53, mean age:
33.2 ± 11.2 years, 68% males; 44.2 ± 7.8 versus 48.3 ± 8.4 Kg, = 0.01). In both UC/CD, disease severity was associated with
nonsignifcant decline in BMI (UC: 22.1 ± 4.9 versus 20.2 ± 3.2 versus 19.9 ± 3.2 kg/m
2
, = 0.23; CD: 22.1 ± 4.2 versus 19.9 ± 2.3
versus 19.7 ± 4.2 kg/m
2
, = 0.18) and fat mass (UC: 10.9 ± 8.9 versus 8.1 ± 5.9 versus 5.7 ± 3.6 kg, = 0.14; CD: 11.2 ± 7 versus
7.9 ± 4.4 versus 7.2 ± 5.9 kg, = 0.16), and disease duration was associated with signifcant decline in FFMI ( < 0.05). In CD,
disease severity was associated with nonsignifcant decline in SCA and increase in VF/SC. Conclusions. CD patients have lower lean
mass than UC. Body fat decreases with increasing disease severity and fat-free mass decreases with increasing disease duration in
both UC/CD.
1. Introduction
Tere has been a recent rise in the disease burden of
infammatory bowel disease (IBD) in India and other Asian
countries and as per a recent report, the overall number of
IBD patients in India is second highest in the world afer
USA [1–3]. Tis increase will gradually burden the healthcare
system and will put increasing pressure on the IBD physician
for optimal care of patients. Te optimal IBD care dose not
only include the control of disease activity with immune
based therapies, but also include improvement in quality of
life, part of which is compromised by poor nutritional status
of the patient which may be caused by low dietary intake,
changes in metabolism, increased intestinal protein loss, and
nutrient malabsorption [4]. Te conventional indices for
assessment of nutritional status such as body mass index
(BMI) have been suboptimal and therefore require better
modalities such as fat mass and fat percentage (for assessment
of body fat) and fat-free mass index (FFMI) and lean mass
(for assessment of fat-free mass) which can be assessed
by bioimpedance analysis or DEXA (dual energy X-Rat
absorptiometry) [5, 6]. Tere are several recent reports which
have assessed and compared body composition with these
techniques in patients with Ulcerative colitis (UC) as well
as Crohn’s disease (CD), but the results from these studies
have been heterogeneous and inconsistent and very few of
these studies are from Asian countries [7–11]. Te distribution
of body fat is diferent between Asians and Caucasians and
Hindawi
Canadian Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
Volume 2017, Article ID 1215035, 8 pages
https://doi.org/10.1155/2017/1215035