Chrons Disease Weight Gain with Infliximab

In a study at the University of North Carolina people treated with infliximab who have chrons disease experience weight gain which so far can not be explained.

Some chrons disease patients put on as much as 75 pounds. This is far more than any weight gain that had been witnessed in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and treated with infliximab.

Cristal Brown, a clinical research fellow at the University said that chrons disease patients were often malnourished and that this could help if the fight against crohn's disease, the difficult question to ask is that what if they were to push chrons disease sufferers into obesity and all the associated problems that come with that?

Chrons disease patients gained almost five times as much weight as patients with arthritis (4.97 kg versus 1.1 kg) and some Crohn's patients gained as much as 20 to 30 kg. There was no difference in weight gain between patients with luminal versus fistulous disease or by steroid use, baseline body mass index, smoking status, or chrons disease activity. These findings were based on the records on 92 people with Chrons disease and 51 rheumatoid arthritis patients. All of whom were at least 18 years old and who had received three or more infusions of infliximab.

Many Chrons disease patients would probably benefit from a small weight gain as the disease often led to some degree of undernourishment, but there is a need for a larger study to determine the cause of this weight gain and the role of leptin in the weight gain.