Lifestyle and Dietary Factors Associated with Inflammatory Bowel Disease among Jordanian Patients

Abstract

Background and Aims: Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) affect Jordanian adults more than other age groups. Several studies highlight the independent effect of various lifestyle factors on the risk of IBD. Therefore, this study aims to compare the differences between some lifestyle factors among IBD cases and IBD-free controls, while detecting the varying degree of malnutrition in the study sample. Methods: A case-control study was conducted between November 2018 and December 2019. Three hundred and thirty-five Jordanian adults above the age of 18 years were enrolled in this study. Out of the 335 participants, 185 of them were recently diagnosed with IBD [100 ulcerative colitis (UC) and 85 Crohn‘s disease (CD)] and 150 IBD-free controls. Sociodemographic characteristics, anthropometric measurements, dietary habits and the degree of malnutrition using the Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA) were collected from all participants. Results: Body mass index and waist circumference were significantly different in UC patients as compared to controls. Cigarette smoking, work status, duration of sleeping hours, physical activity, number of daily main meals intake, meals skipped daily, number of daily snack meal intake, and fast-food intake were all significantly different when comparing IBD cases to controls. While cigarette smoking (OR=0.52, 95%CI: 0.29-0.96, p=0.02) and sleep duration hours during working day (OR=0.05, 95%CI: 0.01-4.68, p=0.001)] were found to be protective factors, the increase in daily working hours (OR=22.13, 95%CI: 10.35-47.32, p=0.001) was identified as a risk factor for IBD. The degree of moderate and severe malnutrition among patients with IBD was significantly (p<0.001) higher as compared to controls. Conclusions: Patients with IBD had lower BMI and physical activity values compared to controls. The number of daily main meals intake, meals skipped daily, number of daily snack meals intake, fast food intake and the degree of malnutrition were significantly different when IBD cases were compared to controls.