BACKGROUND: Improving health-related quality of life is a primary target of therapy for patients with inflammatory bowel disease. Physical activity has been demonstrated to improve health-related quality of life in several patient populations with chronic disease. There are very few studies investigating the effects of physical activity on health-related quality of life in inflammatory bowel disease. The primary purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of 10 weeks of moderate physical activity on health-related quality of life in patients with inflammatory bowel disease. METHODS: Thirty patients with mild to moderate IBD (Crohn's Disease Activity Index (CDAI) < 220 or Rachmilewitz Index (RI) < 11) were randomized 1:1 to either supervised moderate-intensity running thrice a week for 10 weeks or a control group who were not prescribed any exercise. Health-related quality of life, symptoms, and inflammation were assessed at baseline and after 10 weeks. RESULTS: Participants were 41 +/- 14 years (73% female), had a body mass index of 22.8 +/- 4.1 kg/m2, and an average CDAI or RI of 66.8 +/- 42.4 and 3.6 +/- 3.1. No adverse events occurred during the 10-week training period. Health-related quality of life, reported as IBDQ total score, improved 19% in the intervention group and 8% in the control group. Scores for the IBDQ social sub-scale were significantly improved in the intervention group compared with controls (delta IBDQsocial 6.27 +/- 5.46 versus 1.87 +/- 4.76, p = 0.023). CONCLUSION: Patients suffering from moderately active IBD are capable of performing symptom-free regular endurance exercise. Our data support the assumption that PA is feasible in IBD patients. PA may furthermore improve quality of life through improvements in social well-being, and may, therefore, be a useful adjunct to IBD therapy.

Full text (sometimes free) may be available at these link(s):      help

• DOI
• PubMed
• PDF locator
• publisher