Posted by ImproveCareNow™ on February 18, 2016
If you want to get the basics on Enteral Therapy as a treatment for Crohn’s disease, check out this repost of a 2014 blog by Jen Smith of Nationwide Children’s. If you’re interested in learning more about how ImproveCareNow team members are experiencing Exclusive Enteral Nutrition for themselves – to better understand some of the challenges and opportunities – you might want to consider following @JonMosesMD, @HaleyNeef and @UMkidsIBD on Twitter. Also, please follow us here on LOOP, where we’ll continue the conversation by sharing EEN stories from teams and community members, and highlighting co-produced tools support systems for EEN.
[Editor’s note: This article was originally published in CIRCLE May-June 2013]
Enteral therapy refers to providing nutrition as a formula rather than by eating a regular diet. Enteral therapy has been shown to be effective in inducing, and perhaps maintaining, remission for pediatric patients with Crohn’s disease. Enteral therapy does not have the side effects seen with drug treatment, and can improve growth, unlike corticosteroids, which have many known side effects. Although used very little in the United States, enteral therapy is commonly used abroad, including many European countries and Japan.
Over the years, several methods of administering enteral therapy have been evaluated, leading to variation in treatment. In 2012, the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition (NASPGHAN) formed the Enteral Nutrition Working Group to review the use of enteral nutrition therapy in pediatric Crohn’s disease, which summarized previous research and offered recommendations for physicians.
