Nutritional impact of inflammatory bowel diseases on children and adolescents

OBJECTIVE: To perform a sistematiy review of the literature about the nutritional impact of inflammatory bowel diseases in children and adolescents. DATA SOURCES: A systematic review was performed using PubMed/MEDLINE, LILACS and SciELO databases, with inclusion of articles in Portuguese and in English with original data, that analyzed nutritional aspects of inflammatory bowel diseases in children and adolescents. The initial search used the terms "inflammatory bowel diseases" and "children" or "adolescents" and "nutritional evaluation" or "nutrition deficiency". The selection of studies was initially performed by reading the titles and abstracts. Review studies and those withouth data for pediatric patients were excluded. Subsequently, the full reading of the articles considered relevant was performed. RESULTS: 237 studies were identified, and 12 of them were selected according to the inclusion criteria. None of them was performed in South America. During the analysis of the studies, it was observed that nutritional characteristics of patients with inflammatory bowel disease may be altered; the main reports were related to malnutrition, growth stunting, delayed puberty and vitamin D deficiency. CONCLUSION: There are nutritional consequences of inflammatory bowel diseases in children and adolescents, mainly growth stunting, slower pubertal development, underweight and vitamin deficiencies. Nutritional impairments were more significant in patients with Crohn's disease; overweight and obesity were more common in patients with ulcerative rectocolitis. A detailed nutritional assessment should be performed periodically in children and adolescents with inflammatory bowel disease.