Researchers have found that people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are likely to die early.

"The good news is life expectancy has increased in people with IBD, but there is still a gap between people with and without the disease," said study author Eric Benchimol from The Hospital for Sick Children in Canada. "However, people with IBD suffer from pain, which can negatively affect daily functioning and contribute to decreased health-adjusted life expectancy," Benchimol added.

The study, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal included 32,818 people living with IBD in 1996 (matched to 163,284 people without IBD), increasing to 83,672 in 2011 (matched to 418,360 non-IBD people). In women with IBD, life expectancy increased by almost three years between 1996 (75.5 years) and 2011 (78.4 years). The findings showed that Life expectancy among men with IBD increased by 3.2 years between 1996 and 2011, from 72.2 years to 75.5 years. However, people with IBD had a consistently shorter life expectancy than those without IBD. Women with IBD can expect to live between 6.6 years and 8.1 years less than women without IBD.

Men with IBD can expect to live between five years and 6.1 years less than men without IBD. When measuring health-adjusted life expectancy, a measure of how health-related symptoms and functioning affects both quality of life and life expectancy, the gap between those with and without IBD was even greater. Women with IBD have a health-adjusted life expectancy that is 9.5 to 13.5 years shorter than women without IBD. Men with IBD have a health-adjusted life expectancy that is 2.6 to 6.7 years shorter than men without IBD. "Patients with IBD often experience inflammation beyond the intestinal tract and are more likely to be diagnosed with cancer, heart disease, arthritis and other conditions," the authors wrote.