Diet in patients with Crohn's disease

What do you need to bear in mind if you have Crohn's disease or you are caring for someone who does?

People with Crohn’s diseases must eat a varied and balanced diet, contributing energy and all the nutrients appropriate to the needs of each person according to age, gender, constitution and level of physical activity.

The balanced diet should be based on three rules:

• Daily food intake should provide the energy needed for the body to work properly.
• Each meal must provide the energy and non-energy nutrients to adequately cover the nutrition function.
• Nutrition should be consumed in suitable proportions.

Based on these rules, the Generalitat de Catalunya published its revised healthy food pyramid, based on the Mediterranean diet.

The Mediterranean diet is a model that has been recognised by the international scientific community as one of the healthiest and most balanced diets in the world. Based on the trilogy of wheat, vines and olive trees, it offers a variety of very important products that allow you to combine pleasure at the dinner table with nutritional and cultural balance.

Patients at the start of an outbreak and for as long as the outbreak continues, should follow a low-calorie diet. This will stop the inflammation in the intestines from getting worse. It is, therefore, necessary to personalise diets depending on the localisation, extent and type of lesions patients present.