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Sarcopenia, body composition, and fatigue: Is there a connection in patients with inflammatory bowel disease?

2 min read
Symptoms and flares Fatigue Clinical study Adult patients Clinicians Researchers Newly Diagnosed Inflammatory bowel disease

Why This Matters

Fatigue is a common, burdensome symptom for people with IBD and may persist even during remission. This study suggests that measured body composition and sarcopenia may not explain fatigue for most patients, pointing toward other causes that matter for daily functioning and quality of life.

Who Should Pay Attention

Adult patients with IBD (particularly those with ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s diagnosed in young adulthood), gastroenterologists, IBD nurses, and researchers studying fatigue and quality of life in IBD.

Study Snapshot

Story typeResearch paper
Evidence typeResearch paper
Source depthJournal abstract

What To Know

This abstract reports a clinical study of 106 people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that measured self-reported fatigue using the IBD-Fatigue questionnaire and assessed body composition with tetrapolar bioimpedance.

The authors found a high overall prevalence of fatigue (83%) that did not differ by disease activity and did not correlate with sarcopenia measures, BMI categories, lean mass, phase angle, hand-grip strength, or gait speed.

The report highlights that fatigue was especially common among adults with ulcerative colitis and among people with Crohn’s disease diagnosed between ages 17 and 40. The study did not find body-composition markers or sarcopenia criteria that predicted fatigue risk in their sample.

This summary is based on the article abstract provided on PubMed and reflects the authors’ reported methods and conclusions; Cure8 did not review the full published paper beyond the supplied abstract.

Keep In Mind

this brief is grounded in the article abstract on PubMed. Sample size was modest (106 patients) and the abstract does not provide detailed subgroup analyses, long-term follow-up, or potential confounders (for example, anemia, sleep, mental health, or medication effects) that can influence fatigue.

The absence of an association in this study does not rule out other contributors to fatigue in individual patients.

Source Details

Review the original publication for the complete reporting, methods, and context.

Read Original Source
Research paper Evidence type derived from source or registry metadata.
PublicationRevista de gastroenterologia de Mexico (English)
AuthorsM S Martins, G J Santos, C J Almeida +5 more
InstitutionDepartamento de Ciencias de la Nutrición, Facultad de Nutrición, Universidad Federal de Bahía, Salvador, Bahía, Brazil. Electronic address: mess015@hotmail.com.
Study typeJournal article
Indexed viaPubMed
Source typeResearch paper
PublishedOct 30, 2026, 12:00 AM
Content availableJournal abstract

Conflict statement: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare no conflict of interest.

This Cure8 brief is based on source text from the linked article. Cure8 is informational only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

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