Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Mar 28, 2023; 29(12): 1779-1794
Published online Mar 28, 2023. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v29.i12.1779
Obesity and novel management of inflammatory bowel disease
Jee Hyun Kim, Chang-Myung Oh, Jun Hwan Yoo
Jee Hyun Kim, Jun Hwan Yoo, Department of Gastroenterology, CHA Bundang Medical Center, CHA University School of Medicine, Seongnam 13496, South Korea
Chang-Myung Oh, Department of Biomedical Science and Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Gwangju 62465, South Korea
Jun Hwan Yoo, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, CHA University School of Medicine, Seongnam 13496, South Korea
Author contributions: Kim JH, Oh CM and Yoo JH have substantial contributions to conception and design of the review, and literature review; Kim JH drafted and edited the article; Oh CM and Yoo JH revised the manuscript critically for important intellectual content; Kim JH and Yoo JH worked together for the final approval of the version to be published.
Supported by National Research Foundation of Korea grant from the Korean government, the Ministry of Science and ICT, NRF-2020R1F1A1066323 and NRF-2021R1F1A1061550.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Jun Hwan Yoo, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Gastroenterology, CHA Bundang Medical Center, CHA University School of Medicine, 59 Yatap-ro, Bundang-gu, Seongnam 13496, South Korea. jhyoo@cha.ac.kr
Received: October 29, 2022
Peer-review started: October 29, 2022
First decision: January 3, 2023
Revised: January 13, 2023
Accepted: March 14, 2023
Article in press: March 14, 2023
Published online: March 28, 2023
Processing time: 150 Days and 2.3 Hours
Abstract

Obesity is prevalent within the inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) population, particularly in newly developed countries. Several epidemiological studies have suggested that 15%-40% of IBD patients are obese, and there is a potential role of obesity in the pathogenesis of IBD. The dysfunction of mesenteric fat worsens the inflammatory course of Crohn’s disease and may induce formation of strictures or fistulas. Furthermore, obesity may affect the disease course or treatment response of IBD. Given the increasing data supporting the pathophysiologic and epidemiologic relationship between obesity and IBD, obesity control is being suggested as a novel management for IBD. Therefore, this review aimed to describe the influence of obesity on the outcomes of IBD treatment and to present the current status of pharmacologic or surgical anti-obesity treatments in IBD patients.

Keywords: Obesity; Inflammatory bowel disease; Crohn’s disease; Ulcerative colitis

Core Tip: Obesity is prevalent within the inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) population, particularly in newly developed countries. The dysfunction of mesenteric fat worsens the inflammatory course of Crohn’s disease and may induce formation of strictures or fistulas. Furthermore, obesity may affect the disease course or treatment response of IBD. Along with the increasing data that support pathophysiologic and epidemiologic relationship between obesity and IBD, attention is being focused on obesity control as a novel management of IBD. The main purpose of this review is to describe the influence of obesity on the outcomes of IBD treatment and to present the current status of pharmacologic or surgical anti-obesity treatments in IBD patients.