To evaluate the role of mineral intake tendency at the pre-illness periods in etiology of Crohn disease (CD),a hospital-based case-control study using a self-administered questionnaire was designed. Cases were patients aged 15-34 years with IBD (52 Male, 18 Female) within 3 years after diagnosis. One control was recruited for each case, matching by sex, age, in-, out-patient status and hospital. A semi-quantitative food frequency method is used to estimate average intakes of minerals five years ago. In Male, Fe and Na intake of the CD patients were significantly higher than that of controls, and those tendency was also observed in female. These findings suggested that dietary factors may be important for the incidence of IBD.
