Chronic intermittent elemental diet improves growth failure in children with Crohn's disease

Abstract Growth failure often complicates Crohn's disease in pediatric patients and is principally due to inadequate caloric intake. To assess whether intermittent courses of an elemental diet could reestablish growth, 8 children (aged 9.8–14.2 yr) with Crohn's disease and growth failure entered into a prospective trial. Each patient was studied during an observation year on standard therapy, then for an experimental year during which they received enteral elemental diet 1 out of 4 mo. An age- and diseasematched control group of 4 patients was treated by conventional medical therapy during both years. Elemental diet therapy was administered nocturally, at home, by continuous nasogastric infusion and increased the daily caloric intake by 25% (p