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The rapid increase in inflammatory bowel disease incidence confirms the importance of environment in its etiology.
Dr Richard Gearry and colleagues from New Zealand assessed the role of childhood and other environmental risk factors in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
The team carried out a population-based case-control study in Canterbury, New Zealand.
Participants comprised 638 prevalent Crohn's disease cases, 653 prevalent ulcerative colitis cases, and 600 randomly-selected sex and age matched controls.
 | | Having a childhood vegetable garden was protective against IBD | | Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology |
Exposure rates to environmental risk factors were compared.
The researchers found that a family history of inflammatory bowel disease, cigarette smoking at diagnosis, high social class at birth, Caucasian ethnicity were significantly associated with inflammatory bowel disease.
The team observed that city living was associated with Crohn's disease.
Being a migrant was associated with ulcerative colitis.
Having a childhood vegetable garden was protective against inflammatory bowel disease as was having been breast-fed, with a duration-response effect.
Appendicectomy, tonsillectomy, infectious monomucleosis and asthma were more common in Crohn's disease patients than controls.
Dr Gearry's team concluded, “The importance of childhood factors in the development of inflammatory bowel disease is confirmed.”
“The duration-response protective association between breast-feeding and subsequent development of inflammatory bowel disease requires further evaluation, as does the protective effect associated with a childhood vegetable garden.”
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