Chronic inflammatory bowel disease and physical training

Ken Lund from OUH, Odense University Hospital, Research Unit of Clinical Epidemiology

Background
At least 60,000 people in Denmark suffer from chronic intestinal inflammation. The disease often affects young people between the ages of 15 and 35 and cannot be cured. The treatment is primarily medical, but the medicine can have side effects and affect the immune system.

It is well-known that regular exercise generally increases well-being and has many positive health effects. Physical exercise contributes to an anti-inflammatory environment in the body which possibly affects the inflammatory state of patients with chronic bowel inflammation.

The Project
We want to investigate the effect of physical exercise in patients with active chronic bowel inflammation in addition to regular medical treatment.
The project is a clinical study, and we will therefore recruit 120 patients with mild to moderately active disease from Odense University Hospital and Sydvestjysk Hospital in Esbjerg. The patients will be divided into a training group and a control group. The training group will participate in 12 weeks of regular supervised training, and a class on a healthy lifestyle. The control group will only take part in the class session. Everyone will receive their usual medical treatment. 

The study will help to clarify whether long-term physical training can be a new add-on treatment that can be included in the treatment strategy in patients with chronic bowel inflammation.

Research Director: Ken Lund