Research
Hormonal
Corticosteroid therapy in IBD patients is associated with adverse body composition changes, including reduced fat-free mass and increased fat mass, depending on the patient subgroup.
If you are prescribed corticosteroids for IBD, be aware they can cause muscle loss and fat gain, particularly in women. Discuss monitoring strategies with your doctor, but do not avoid necessary treatment due to these side effects, as active disease causes even greater body composition damage.
ModerateSupportsLOW confidence
Patients undergoing Corticosteroid therapy were found to demonstrate lower FFM compared with those not currently taking steroids in one study... Another study showed that increased FM in females, but not males, was associated with steroid use.
Why this rating
Based on limited data within the reviewed studies; only a few studies reported on therapy effects.
Source
Systematic review: body composition in adults with inflammatory bowel disease
Robert V. Bryant et al. · Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics · 2013
DOI 10.1111/apt.12372
systematic_review · n=926Cited 172×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Adults with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), particularly Crohn's disease, exhibit significant alterations in body composition characterized by reduced fat-free mass and fat mass, which are often masked by normal or elevated BMI.Moderate
- Reduced fat-free mass (lean mass) in IBD patients is a stronger predictor of bone mineral density (BMD) than fat mass or BMI.Moderate
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