Z Gastroenterol 2008; 46 - A104
DOI: 10.1055/s-2008-1079708

Element intake in patients with inflammatory bowel diseases

K Szentmihályi 1, O Dörnyei 2, Á Kovács 3, Z May 1, E Dinya 2, A Blázovics 2
  • 1Institute of Materials and Environmental Chemistry, Chemical Research Center, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest
  • 2Semmelweis University, Budapest
  • 3Department of Gastroenterology, Péterfy Hospital, Budapest

Introduction: Malnutrition is a serious problem in inflammatory bowel diseases. Since the main natural sources of essential elements are foodstuffs, a questionnaire were made for the determination of the nutritional habit and element intake in IBD. Patients: 50 IBD patients (25 male, 25 female) and 50 healthy volunteers (35 male, 15 female) were asked to complete the questionnaire. Results: Our survey shows that the consumption of plant foodstuffs (fruits and vegetables) amount to 146kg/year (0.4kg/day) for IBD patients and 171.6kg/year (0.47kg/day) for controls. The element intake was different in the two groups according to the nutritional habits. Healthy volunteers consume about 18–66% of the essential element requirements depending on the element whereas the element intakes of IBD patients are between 15 and 60%. The intakes of Ca and Zn were the lowest in both groups. Conclusion: In IBD patients the element imbalance may also contribute to the deficiency states. Latent element deficiency may develop in healthy volunteers as well since the nutritional habit of IBD patients and volunteers were similar.

The work was suppotered by ETT 012/2006.