Dietary Intake and Symptom Severity in Women with Fecal Incontinence

The goal of this study was to determine whether dietary fat/fiber intake was associated with fecal incontinence (FI) severity.

Planned supplemental analysis of a randomized clinical trial evaluating the impact of 12-week treatment with percutaneous tibial nerve stimulation versus sham in reducing FI severity in women. All subjects completed a food screener questionnaire at baseline. FI severity was measured using the seven-item validated St. Mark’s (Vaizey) FI severity scale. Participants also completed a 7-day bowel diary capturing the number of FI-free days, FI events, and bowel movements per week. Spearman’s correlations were calculated between dietary, St. Mark’s score, and bowel diary measures.

One hundred and eighty-six women were included in this analysis. Mean calories from fats were 32% (interquartile range [IQR] 30–35%). Mean dietary fiber intake was 13.9 ± 4.3 g. The percentage of calories from fats was at the higher end of recommended values, whereas fiber intake was lower than recommended for adult women (recommended values: calories from fat 20–35% and 22–28 g of fiber/day). There was no correlation between St. Mark’s score and fat intake (r = 0.11, p = 0.14) or dietary fiber intake (r = −0.01, p = 0.90). There was a weak negative correlation between the number of FI-free days and total fat intake (r = −0.20, p = 0.008). Other correlations between dietary fat/fiber intake and bowel diary measures were negligible or nonsignificant.

Overall, in women with moderate to severe FI, there was no association between FI severity and dietary fat/fiber intake. Weak associations between FI frequency and fat intake may suggest a role for dietary assessment in the evaluation of women with FI.