Impact of Obesity on the Management and Clinical Course of Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

BACKGROUND: Obesity has been linked with a proinflammatory state and the development of inflammatory diseases. Data on the clinical course and treatment of obese patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are limited. We used an institutional IBD registry to investigate the impact of obesity on IBD severity and treatment. METHODS: This was a retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data for 3 years (2009-2011). Patients with IBD were categorized by body mass index (BMI). IBD-related quality of life, biochemical markers of inflammation, comorbidities, health care utilization, and treatment were characterized. Obesity was defined as a BMI ≥30 (type I: 30-34.9, type II: 35-39.9, and type III ≥40). RESULTS: Among 1494 patients with IBD, 71.9% were above their ideal BMI and 31.5% were obese. Obesity was more common in ulcerative colitis compared with patients with Crohn's disease (P = 0.04). Obese class II and class III patients were predominantly female. Obesity in IBD was associated with female gender (P < 0.0001), diabetes mellitus (P < 0.001), hypertension (P < 0.001), hyperlipidemia (P < 0.001), poor quality of life (P < 0.0001), and increased rates of C-reactive protein elevation (P = 0.008). In logistic regression analysis, quality of life and C-reactive protein elevation were not independently correlated with obesity. There was no association between increasing BMI and annual prednisone use, emergency department visits, hospitalization, and surgery. Obesity was associated with lower milligrams per kilogram doses of purine analogs and biologics. CONCLUSIONS: Obesity in IBD is not associated with increased health care utilization and IBD-related surgeries. Optimal regimens for drug dosing in obese patients with IBD have yet to be defined.

Recurrent blood eosinophilia in ulcerative colitis is associated with severe disease and primary sclerosing cholangitis.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Eosinophils are implicated in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). A subset of IBD patients develops blood eosinophilia, and the clinical profile of these patients is undefined. We sought to characterize IBD patients with and without eosinophilia. METHODS: We studied a prospective registry of 1,176 IBD patients followed in a tertiary referral center. Patients who developed eosinophilia at any time were identified by electronic medical record query. We performed a chart review case-control study comparing patients with recurrent eosinophilia versus randomly selected disease-matched patients with no history of eosinophilia. Histological analysis was performed on selected cases and controls. RESULTS: Eosinophilia at any time was more prevalent in ulcerative colitis (UC) patients than Crohn's disease patients (22.2 versus 12.7%), as was recurrent eosinophilia (3.4 versus 0.7%). UC patients with recurrent eosinophilia were predominantly male compared with the control UC population (81.3 versus 46.9%) and had higher rates of colectomy for either medically refractory disease or dysplasia/cancer than control UC patients (56.3 versus 15.6%). Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) occurred in 37.5% of UC patients with recurrent eosinophilia compared with only 3.1% in the UC controls. Histological analysis of random diagnostic samples from UC patients with recurrent eosinophilia demonstrated a normal eosinophil pattern as seen in the control UC population. CONCLUSIONS: Eosinophilia-associated UC is a subgroup of IBD associated with severe colitis and PSC. Further studies are warranted to characterize molecular mechanisms underlying eosinophilia-associated UC and to determine optimal approaches for therapy.