P003 Meat Consumption and All-Cause Mortality in 5763 Inflammatory Bowel Disease Patients: A Prospective Cohort Study

BACKGROUND: Meat consumption was found to be associated with the incidence and developmental course of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), but its roles in the risk of all-cause mortality in IBD patients remained unknown. The aim of this study (UK Biobank Resource under application number 73595) was to assess the associations between meat consumption and all-cause mortality among IBD patients. METHODS: We leveraged data of 5763 IBD patients in the UK Biobank recruited from 2007 to 2010 and followed up to March 13, 2021. Dietary information was collected using a simplified food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) in the touchscreen questionnaire at baseline recruitment. Death events were ascertained from the death registry. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate potential associations of each meat consumption with mortality in IBD patients, 0.1-0.9 time per week was seen as the reference, and hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence interval (CIs) were reported. Moreover, we conducted a series of subgroup and sensitivity analyses. RESULTS: During an average follow-up of 11.7 years, we documented 590 deaths over 67,095 person-years. Of the 5763 IBD patients with a mean (SD) age of 57.3 (7.9) years, 3028 (52.5%) were female and 2735 (47.5%) were male, 1834 were with Crohn’s diseases (CD) and 3929 were with ulcerative colitis (UC). Consuming processed meat more than 4 times per week (>4 times/week) was associated with an increased risk of mortality in IBD patients (HR 1.53, 95%CI 1.06-2.23, P = 0.025) compared with consumption of less than once per week (0.1-0.9 time/week), while consumptions of fish, unprocessed poultry, or unprocessed red meat were not found to be related to mortality. The association of processed meat with mortality was also observed in CD patients (HR 2.01, 95%CI 1.12-3.62, P = 0.020), but not significantly in UC patients (HR 1.27, 95% CI 0.77-2.09, P = 0.346). In subgroup analyses, we also observed the associations in IBD patients with diseases duration more than 10 years (HR 1.67, 95%CI 1.03-2.69) or patients who had high physical activities (HR 2.21, 95%CI 1.13-4.33), but was not significant in other subgroup analyses, also, the associations manifested robust in sensitivity analyses. CONCLUSION: In this study, more frequent consumption of processed meat was found to be associated with the increased risk of mortality in IBD patients, while no such associations were observed in IBD patients who consuming fish, unprocessed poultry meat or unprocessed red meat. Therefore, based on the results above, we recommend a remodified diet with restricting processed meat as well as supplying an additional healthy diet for IBD patients, using alone or in combination with pharmacotherapy.