P185 Food avoidance and dietary restrictions in patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Abstract

Abstract Background Nutrition has a key role in IBD, more so in Crohn’s disease (CD) than ulcerative colitis (UC) and studies have shown that patients restrict or avoid certain dietary items; not necessarily due to medical advice. This could be detrimental to nutritional status by causing weight loss, disordered eating and nutritional deficiencies. Methods An online survey was carried out amongst IBD patients attending a teaching hospital in an urban area in the UK. Ten questions were asked and the survey was sent to 100 patients with their consent. Results The total survey response rate was 38%. Only 8% of patients had a long diagnosis due to diagnosis when a child, and although all restricted their diet still, this did not seem to show significance (p = 0.597). There was no significant difference between IBD type and whether the patient restricted their diet or not (p = 0.107). Notably, we did find that the most common reason for avoiding dietary items was patients ‘feel it helps symptoms’ (less so the ‘advised by clinician’ choice), however there was no significant difference between types of IBD and dietary exclusion reasons (p = 0.721). The most common dietary avoidances were spicy foods, followed by caffeine and fibre. There was a significant difference between CD and UC patients and the dietary groups they limited (p = 0.006), with there being a difference between CD and UC patients specifically for fibre (p = 0.027), for gluten/wheat (p = 0.0002) and for dairy (p = 0.077), however the latter did not reach significance. Of note, there is no difference in how long patients avoided dietary items, showing restriction is widespread irrespective of disease status (active or in remission). Conclusion Our survey indicates that food avoidance is commonplace among IBD patients, and the common foods avoided are spicy foods, caffeine and fibre, more so with CD than UC. These appear self-induced without medical advice, and this could have a detrimental impact on nutritional status. This is important information which merits further studies, perhaps with a larger sample size.