Original articleCutoff Volume of Dietary Fiber to Ameliorate Constipation in Children
Section snippets
Patients
During a 3-year period (January 2003-January 2006), we conducted a prospective dietary program to determine the adequate intake of dietary fiber to relieve constipation in children diagnosed at the pediatric gastroenterology clinic. Subjects were between 4 and 14 years of age and sustained at least 2 weeks of defecating <3 times per week. To evaluate the proper volumes of intake of dietary fiber for the relief of constipation in patients of different age groups, patients were categorized into a
Demographic and Clinical Features
540 patients were recruited for the study; 57 children with acute illness (30 upper respiratory tract infection, 27 gastroenteritis), 32 cases with incomplete dietary recording, and 29 cases with poor compliance of follow-up visits were withdrawn from the study, giving a total of 422 patients participating (234 male and 188 female). The mean age of the 422 patients was 7.89 ± 3.71 years (range, 3.1-14.9 years). The younger group consisted of 219 children (51.9 %) with a mean age of 5.77 ± 1.59
Discussion
Several factors have been associated with constipation, such as the vicious cycle of a painful bowel movement followed by withholding of stools, genetic factors, disturbances of intestinal motility, and dietary habits.13, 14, 15 In this study, the mean duration of constipation in the patients was relatively shorter than that of the patients observed in some earlier reports, and this may be because in our study we emphasized an early dietary intervention. The results of this study found a strong
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