Changing food habits leading to bowel diseases in kids: Study

Changing food habits from organic food to processed food is resulting in rise in inflammatory bowel disease in children in India, a study says.

The multi-centric study shows that out of 221 children, 42 percent suffered from Ulcerative Colitis, which involves the large intestine, and 55.2 percent suffered from Crohn's Disease, which involves the food pipe, small intestine as well as large intestine, a release said here on Tuesday.

The paediatric inflammatory bowel disease is more severe than the adult inflammatory bowel disease and needs prolonged treatment. It is also leading to growth failures in children.

The results of the study have been published in the January 2015 edition of Indian Journal of Gastroenterology.

There were two centres from northern India (including Sir Ganga Ram Hospital), four centres from southern India and one from central India which participated in the study.

According to Nishant Wadhwa, co-author of the study and paediatric gastroenterologist at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital: "This study has for the first time outlined the baseline profile in paediatric population with IBD from India and has shown that two-third (60.5 percent) of the children in this series were suffering from growth failure."