Life Expectancy Has Increased for Individuals With IBD

MONDAY, Nov. 9, 2020 -- Life expectancy has increased for individuals with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), but there is still a gap in life expectancy for those with and without IBD, according to a study published online Nov. 9 in CMAJ, the journal of the Canadian Medical Association.

In an effort to examine trends in life expectancy and health-adjusted life expectancy in people with and without IBD, M. Ellen Kuenzig, Ph.D., from The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, and colleagues conducted a retrospective cohort study of population-level health administrative, demographic, and health survey data.

The researchers observed an increase in life expectancy in patients with IBD between 1996 and 2011 (from 75.5 to 78.4 years for women; from 72.2 to 75.5 years for men). Health-adjusted life expectancy decreased among men by 3.9 years between 1996 and 2008. Among women with IBD, there was no statistically significant change seen in health-adjusted life expectancy. Compared with those without IBD, those with IBD had lower life expectancy and health-adjusted life expectancy. In people with and without IBD, differences in life expectancy varied from 6.6 to 8.1 years for women and from 5.0 to 6.1 years for men; differences in health-adjusted life expectancy varied from 9.5 to 13.5 years for women and from 2.6 to 6.7 years for men.

"We found that the gap in health-adjusted life expectancy between those with and without IBD was large when evaluating both general well-being and the effect of pain," the authors write.

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Posted: November 2020