Malnutrition and malabsorption in crohn's disease with reference to the effect of surgery

Sixty-three patients with Crohn's disease showed a high incidence of nutritional deficiencies as judged by laboratory tests. Malabsorption of fat (33 per cent) and vitamin B12 (60 per cent) was not sufficiently severe to account for the malnutrition. Malnutrition was especially severe in unoperated patients with active disease, whereas malabsorption was prominent in patients with recurrent disease after resection although they had less active disease and less severe nutritional deficits. Surgery should not be withheld from a malnourished patient for fear of inducing further malnutrition; excision of toxic inflammatory disease will not only improve the immediate outlook but will also reduce the severity of further recurrences. Xylose-excretion tests give a spurious impression of malabsorption in Crohn's disease, possibly as a result of occult renal impairment, and should be abandoned.