Published online Jan 14, 2022. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v28.i2.230
Peer-review started: September 12, 2021
First decision: October 16, 2021
Revised: October 18, 2021
Accepted: December 31, 2021
Article in press: December 31, 2021
Published online: January 14, 2022
Processing time: 120 Days and 13.6 Hours
There is limited information about risk factors for microscopic colitis, a leading cause of chronic watery diarrhea.
We hypothesized that obesity might be associated with microscopic colitis.
To compare patients with microscopic colitis to patients with chronic diarrhea to learn more about associations with obesity and hormones.
We conducted a case-control study among patients who were referred to a single academic medical center for chronic diarrhea. The biopsies were reviewed by a research pathologist and classified as microscopic colitis cases or diarrhea controls. We used logistic regression to estimate odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals.
Cases with microscopic colitis had a lower body mass index than controls in adjusted models. Although patients with microscopic colitis reported that they lost more weight following the onset of diarrhea, the associations with BMI persisted in analyses stratified by weight loss. Oral contraceptives were inversely associated with micr
Microscopic colitis cases were less likely to be obese than diarrhea controls. While the mechanism behind the association is not known, it could involve hormonal effects of obesity or the gut microbiome.
Additional research is needed to understand the association between obesity and microscopic colitis.