Assessment of dietary habits in inflammatory bowel disease patients: A cross‐sectional study from Poland

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has a negative impact on patients’ quality of life and affects their dietary habits. In this cross‐sectional study, we focused on the overall variety of food products consumed by IBD patients compared to a group of age‐ and sex‐matched controls; we also investigated the self‐reported, most frequently consumed and most avoided foods in relation to anticipated aggravation of IBD symptoms. We recruited 73 IBD patients from Lodz, Poland (56% with Crohn's disease [CD], 44% with ulcerative colitis [UC]); average duration of IBD 118 ± 78 months and 103 healthy volunteers aged 13–59 years, of whom 52 (72% female, 28% male) and 76 (65% female and 35% male), respectively, were enrolled for further analysis. Using a 186‐item food frequency questionnaire, we found that the overall reported frequency of food products consumed was lower in IBD patients than in the controls. Patients with IBD reported eating fruits (median: 1.33 vs. 1.86, p = 0.003), vegetables (1.22 vs. 2.06, p