“The main doubts and questions that the Crohn’s patients are certainly about which foods they can eat and which they can avoid”. In fact, there are “foods with a pro-inflammatory action and it is necessary to identify them, select them and not eat them”. Furthermore, these patients “do not receive correct information, based on scientific evidence”. He said Mara Pellizzari, President of the Association of Chronic Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, Amici Onluscommenting on the awareness campaign ‘Crohnviviamo’, promoted by Nestlé Health Science in collaboration with the same association, which aims to shed light on the needs and impact of Crohn’s disease – which affects about 200 thousand Italians, with a peak between the ages of 20 and 30 – on the various aspects of daily life, both physically and psychologically, with a focus on the central aspect of nutrition. “Usually – observes Pellizzari – the definition of a nutritional plan occurs alone, in the sense that one proceeds by trial and error, identifying those foods that can cause harm. Unfortunately, it also happens that patients collect information from sources that are not based on scientific evidence and this, of course, does not help”. For this reason “it is necessary to promote food literacy campaigns” that, in addition to providing information geared towards patients, create “the conditions so that all gastroenterology centers can have dieticians or in any case nutrition professionals so that patients can obtain all the information necessary to build a healthy dietary plan”. Good and healthy nutrition is “an important part of therapy and this is even more important for children,” Pellizzari emphasizes. “A survey on the quality of nutrition conducted by Amici Onlus found that only 69% have adequate nutritional literacy, but usually built, in fact, in a single way.” Hence the importance of “awareness campaigns” such as, for example, the two Days in Cremona, on June 19 and 20, in which the Amici Onlus association “presented recommendations regarding nutrition for patients with IBD,” chronic inflammatory bowel diseases contained in the handbook ‘Faq: nutrition and Crohn’s disease’, edited by Camilla Fiorindi, dietician-nutritionist at the Careggi University Hospital in Florence, which collects answers to the most frequently asked questions and doubts.
English: The text, created with the patronage of Amici onlus, is available free of charge, in digital format, on the Nestlé Health Science website. “We can consider the recommendations – Pellizzari points out – a real milestone in the process of therapeutic education for patients with IBD, precisely considering the fact that it becomes a very important tool for leading a healthy life and increasingly less conditioned by the complications” of the disease. “The dietary restrictions that Crohn’s patients are subjected to – especially in the acute phases of the disease but, of course, to a certain extent, also in the phases of remission – have a significant impact on social life. In the acute phases – he explains – the diet is particularly or drastically reduced to a few foods and this affects conviviality, sociality and can also lead to phases of isolation and depression”, an aspect, this “decidedly important to monitor”. Fortunately, “in gastroenterology centers we often also have the figure of the psychologist who accompanies patients if, in fact, they recognize these symptoms”. In this context, “there are not only impeding factors, but also protective factors – concludes the president of Amici onlus – Once the appropriate diet for the patient with Crohn’s disease has been identified, healthy eating is encouraged for the whole family. Caregivers and, therefore, family members, also out of solidarity and sharing, eat healthily”.
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