Field Notes

Youths With IBD Are Less Fit Than Their Peers

Children and adolescents growing up with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are less fit than their peers, according to a study by researchers at McMaster University and the McMaster Children’s Hospital.

The study, published online in the Journal of Pediatrics, showed children and youths with the most common forms of IBD have aerobic fitness levels that are 25% lower than other children their age and muscle function that is 10% lower.

“Raising a child with a chronic condition is challenging, but we need to look at more than just ‘fixing the child’ and think about active living to reduce the risk of future health problems,” says principal investigator Brian Timmons, PhD, of McMaster’s Child Health and Exercise Medicine Program.

The study showed that patients with IBD in remission also have poor fitness that may start at an early age.

Fitness during childhood is an important predictor of adult health, says Timmons. “Closer attention needs to be paid to the physical activity levels and participation habits of youth with IBD. This starts with the child’s doctor,” he notes.

Investigators at the Child Health & Exercise Medicine Program and the Centre for Child and Youth Digestive Health teamed up to measure aerobic fitness and muscle function in patients with either Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, the most common forms of IBD, while they were in remission. The prevalence of inflammatory bowel disease among Canadian youths is between 18 and 70 per 100,000, depending on the province.

Timmons says the study confirms that patients should be encouraged to be as active as possible, and families should be provided resources about active living. Clinicians who specialize in pediatric IBD should consider referring patients with IBD for exercise testing and involvement of an activity therapist or physiotherapist in the clinical management of these youths.

— Source: McMaster University

 

A Daily Dose of Safflower Oil May Help Keep Heart Disease at Bay

A daily dose of safflower oil for 16 weeks can improve health measures such as good cholesterol, blood sugar, insulin sensitivity, and inflammation in obese postmenopausal women who have type 2 diabetes, according to new research appearing online in Clinical Nutrition.

These new findings have led the chief researcher to suggest that a daily dietary dose of about 1 2/3 tsp of safflower oil is a safe way to help reduce cardiovascular disease risk.

“The women in the study didn’t replace what was in their diet with safflower oil. They added it to what they were already doing. And that says to me that certain people need a little more of this type of good fat, particularly when they’re obese women who already have diabetes,” says Martha Belury, PhD, RD, a professor of human nutrition at Ohio State University and lead study author.

For this current research, the scientists performed a secondary analysis of data collected from a previous clinical trial, applying a statistical analysis to the results and checking to see how long it took for any effects of the oils to appear in the women’s health profiles. The scientists had taken blood samples every four weeks during the study to obtain these measures.

In almost all cases in this analysis, safflower oil supplementation improved metabolic measures. Several beneficial effects of safflower oil were evident after 16 weeks of supplementation. On average, among all of the women tested, these benefits included the following:

• an increase in insulin sensitivity of about 2.7%;

• a small but significant 0.64% decrease in hemoglobin A1c; and

• a roughly 17.5% decrease in C-reactive protein.

The researchers had documented in a previous study that safflower oil also lowered fasting blood sugar levels by between 11 and 19 points on average; the women’s average blood sugar levels ranged from 129 to 148 after 16 weeks of safflower oil supplementation.

Within 12 weeks, the safflower oil led to a 14% increase in HDL cholesterol as well as an increase in adiponectin, a hormone that regulates levels of blood sugar and fats and that influences insulin levels. Higher levels of adiponectin could be expected to increase the efficiency of dietary fat burning, Belury says.

“We don’t know the long-term effects of safflower oil from this study alone, but I certainly think it’s possible that the risk for cardiovascular problems could be significantly decreased in this high-risk group if supplementation were continued,” Belury adds.

— Source: Ohio State University