Results and discussion
Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, IBD, fatigue
BLOOD, MINOR, ULCERATIVE COLITIS, INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASE
Blood samples were available from all 60 IBD patients, i.e. 40 patients with chronic fatigue and 20 patients matched for gender and age and without fatigue. The median age was 35 years (IQR 25–45). Eight patients were men and 52 were women. Half of the patients had Crohn’s disease and half had ulcerative colitis (Table When comparing the baseline samples from the 40 patients with chronic fatigue with samples from the 20 patients without fatigue, only the concentration of flavin mononucleotide (FMN) a B2 vitamer, was different between the groups (Table Plasma levels of B-vitamin, related vitamers, and metabolites at baselineComparison of 40 chronic fatigued and 20 non-fatigued patients with quiescent inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Results are showed as median and interquartile range in parenthesesIn the 40 patients with chronic fatigue, changes in plasma levels of B-vitamins and metabolites directly after high dose thiamine treatment for 4 weeks were assessed. Treatment with thiamine caused a 100-fold increase in plasma thiamine, but only minor changes in the other biomarkers. Subsequently, we compared the changes between patients who reported a positive effect on fatigue on ≥ 3 points on the IBD-F scale (n = 26) with patients who did not experience changes in fatigue scores (n = 14). Patients who reported effect on fatigue following high dose thiamine had a statistically significantly drop in the median level of riboflavin directly after treatment (p = 0.01), but as shown in Table Changes in plasma levels of B-vitamin, related vitamers, and metabolites directly after high dose thiamine treatment for 4 weeks in 40 patients with quiescent inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and chronic fatigueComparison between the 26 IBD patients who reported effect on fatigue (fatigue decrease of ≥ 3 points i the IBD-F scale) after oral high dose thiamine treatment and the 14 IBD patients without effect. Results are showed as median and interquartile range in parentheses