Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Overweight is becoming increasingly more common among patients with inflammatory bowel disease and plays a role in the development and course of the disease especially in Crohn’s disease (CD). However, there is currently little data on his impact on the evolutionary genius of CD. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of overweight on the epidemiological, clinical, therapeutic and progressive characteristics of CD.

Patients and Methods: It is a retrospective study of patients with CD hospitalized between 2016 and 2020. Demographic, clinical, therapeutic and evolution data were identified from medical records. Patients were divided into two groups based on the body mass index (BMI) at the time of diagnosis; group 1 (BMI≥ 25), group 2 (BMI <25). A comparison of the two groups was performed

Results: A total of 56 patients were collected. The median baseline BMI was 21.59 kg /m^² [16-29.4]. 85.7% of patients had a BMI <25 kg /m^², 14.3% were overweight (n =8). The comparison of these groups shows no significant difference in terms of age, sex ratio, tobacco consumption, the duration of development of disease, disease phenotype, presence of anoperineal lesions, presence of upper digestive tract, the severity of the initial flare or the degree of initial intestinal damage assessed by the Lemann score. However, a significant association was demonstrated between overweight and a colonic localization of the disease at the time of diagnosis, compared to other localizations (P = 0.02). After a mean follow-up of 36.82 months [6 –52 months], there was no significant difference between the 2 groups concerning the occurrence of complications of CD (P = 0.76), the number of severe relapses (P = 0.21), course of intestinal damage (P = 0.59), use of systemic corticosteroid therapy (P = 0.75), immunosuppressants (P = 0.58), biotherapy (P = 0.34) or surgical treatment (P = 0.37). Extra-digestive manifestations were more frequent in overweight patients compared to patients with a normal BMI but without statistically significant difference (group 1: 37.5% vs group 2: 27.1%, P = 0.41). The possibility of achieving deep remission was similar in the two groups (group 1: 12.5% vs group 2: 8.3%, P = 0.55).

Conclusion: According to these results, being overweight in CD does not significantly alter the long-term course of the disease. Studies on larger scales are therefore necessary.