Short term effects of a combined lifestyle intervention in patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Abstract Background Diet and physical activity might help to improve quality of life and maintain remission in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). In other conditions, interventions in which diet and physical activity are combined seem to be more effective than separate interventions. Therefore, we assessed the effect of a combined lifestyle intervention on the impact of disease on daily life, clinical disease activity, fatigue and quality of life in patients with Crohn’s disease (CD) or ulcerative colitis (UC). Methods A single arm intervention study was performed in IBD patients in remission or with mildly active disease. Participants received personal advice to improve their diet and level of physical activity by a dietician and a physiotherapist in one face-to-face and one telephone consult. These advices were supported by guidelines based on the Dutch dietary and physical activity guidelines, a recipe app and a booklet with physical activity exercises. IBD disability index (IBD-DI) to assess impact of disease on daily life, clinical disease activity questionnaires (P-HBI or P-SCCAI), IBD fatigue (IBD-F) patient self-assessment scale and IBD quality of life questionnaire (IBDQ) were completed. The Eetscore Food Frequency Questionnaire (Eetscore FFQ) and Short Questionnaire to Assess Health-enhancing physical activity (SQUASH) were used to assess diet and physical activity. Changes from baseline to 5 weeks after start were investigated by paired samples t-tests or Wilcoxon signed rank tests. Results We included 29 participants. At time of this preliminary analysis, 25 participants completed baseline and 5-week assessments (11 males, 11 CD, median age 36 years [IQR 29–53], median BMI 25 kg/m2 [IQR 24–28]). After 5 weeks, diet quality had significantly improved (p<0.001), but level of physical activity had not (p=0.509). Impact of disease on daily life (IBD-DI) decreased with 2.5 points (95%CI -5.5-0.4; p=0.09). Disease activity did not change significantly. There was a significant decrease in fatigue (median IBD-F 20 [IQR 8–29] to 15 [IQR 3–24; p=0.03]) and a significant increase in quality of life (median IBDQ 194 [IQR 179–206] to 196 [IQR 186–209; p=0.03]). Conclusion These preliminary results suggest that a combined lifestyle intervention is effective to reduce fatigue and to increase quality of life in patients with IBD, at least in the short term. Impact of disease on daily life and clinical disease activity did not improve significantly. Participants reported their level of physical activity to be restricted due to COVID-19 measures, which could explain the lack of effect on this outcome. This study is still ongoing and we expect follow-up data up till 1 year after start.