The impact of malnutrition on morbidity, mortality, length of hospital stay and costs evaluated through a multivariate model analysis.

Background: The serious problem of hospital undernutrition is still being underestimated, despite its impact on clinical evolution and costs. The screening methods developed so far are not useful for daily clinical practice due to their low effectiveness/cost ratio. Objective: We present an screening tool for CONtrolling NUTritional status (CONUT) that allows an automatic daily assessment of nutritional status of all inpatients that undergo routine analysis. Design: The system is based on a computer application that compiles daily all useful patient information available in hospital databases, through the internal network. It automatically assesses the nutritional status taking into account laboratory information including serum albumin, total cholesterol level and total lymphocyte count. We have studied the association between the results of the Subjective Global Assessment (SGA) and Full Nutritional Assessment (FNA) with those from CONUT, in a sample of 53 individuals. Results: The agreement degree between CONUT and FNA as measured by kappa index is 0.669 (p = 0.003), and between CONUT and SGA is 0.488 (p = 0.034). Considering FNA as “gold standard” we obtain a sensitivity of 92.3 and a specificity of 85.0. Conclusions: CONUT seems to be an efficient tool for early detection and continuous control of hospital undernutrition, with the suitable characteristics for these screening functions. (Nutr Hosp 2005, 20:38-45)

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CONUT: A tool for Controlling Nutritional Status. First validation in a hospital population

The risk of progression from exposure to the tuberculosis bacilli to the development of active disease is a two-stage process governed by both exogenous and endogenous risk factors. Exogenous factors play a key role in accentuating the progression from exposure to infection among which the bacillary load in the sputum and the proximity of an individual to an infectious TB case are key factors. Similarly endogenous factors lead in progression from infection to active TB disease. Along with well-established risk factors (such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), malnutrition, and young age), emerging variables such as diabetes, indoor air pollution, alcohol, use of immunosuppressive drugs, and tobacco smoke play a significant role at both the individual and population level. Socioeconomic and behavioral factors are also shown to increase the susceptibility to infection. Specific groups such as health care workers and indigenous population are also at an increased risk of TB infection and disease. This paper summarizes these factors along with health system issues such as the effects of delay in diagnosis of TB in the transmission of the bacilli.

/pdf/risk-factors-for-tuberculosis-51hcda4lht.pdf

Risk Factors for Tuberculosis

Humans diverge from most mammals, including nonhuman primates, by depositing significant quantities of body fat in utero and are consequently one of the fattest species on record at birth. While explanations for the fat layer of human neonates have commonly assumed that it serves as insulation to compensate for hairlessness, empirical support for this hypoth- esis is presently weak. Whether the tissue's abundance at birth and growth changes in adiposity during infancy and childhood might be explained in light of its role as energy buffer has not been assessed, and this possibility is explored through development of a model of fat function and growth centered on two related hypotheses. The first is that the greater adiposity of human neonates is at least partially explainable as an accompaniment of the enlarged human brain, which demands a larger energy reserve to ensure that its obligatory needs are met when the flow of resources from mother or other caretakers is disrupted. The second is that age-related changes in the likelihood of experiencing such disruption have influenced the pattern of investment in the tissue, reflected today in peak adiposity during infancy and a decline to a leaner childhood period. Nutritional disruption is common at birth and until lactation is established, during which time human newborns survive from fats deposited prenatally, suggesting one possible explanation for the early onset of fat deposition. At weaning, the transition from breast milk to supplemental foods and the parallel transition from maternal to endogenous immune protection interact to increase the frequency and impact of nutritional disruption, and this may help explain why newborns devote roughly 70% of growth expenditure to fat deposition during the early postnatal months. Evidence is presented that fat stores are mobilized during infections, hinting at one possible mechanism underlying the association between nutritional status and infectious morbidity and mortality among infants in nutritionally stressed human populations. Consistent with the proposed hypothesis, well-fed infants acquire peak fat reserves by an age of peak prevalence of malnutrition, infectious disease, and fat reserve depletion in less-buffered contexts, and childhood—characterized by minimal invest- ment in the tissue—is a stage of reduced risk of energy stress. The model presented here foregrounds energy storage in adipose tissue as an important life-history strategy and a means to modify mortality risk during the nutritionally turbulent period of infancy. Yrbk Phys Anthropol 41:177-209, 1998. r 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

https://groups.anthropology.northwestern.edu/lhbr/kuzawa_web_files/pdfs/Kuzawa%201998%20yearbook.pdf

Adipose tissue in human infancy and childhood : an evolutionary perspective

These stand-alone treatment guidelines serve as a framework for selecting the most potent and feasible first-line and second-line ARV regimens as components of expanded national responses for the care of HIV-infected infants and children. Recommendations are provided on: diagnosing HIV infection in infants and children; when to start ART including situations where severe HIV disease in children less than 18 months of age has been presumptively diagnosed; clinical and laboratory monitoring of ART; substitution of ARVs for toxicities. The guidelines consider ART in different situations e.g. where infants and children are coinfected with HIV and TB or have been exposed to ARVs either for the prevention of MTCT (PMTCT) or because of breastfeeding from an HIV-infected mother on ART. They address the importance of nutrition in the HIV-infected child and of severe malnutrition in relation to the provision of ART. Adherence to therapy and viral resistance to ARVs are both discussed with reference to infants and children. A section on ART in adolescents briefly outlines key issues related to treatment in this age group. (excerpt)

Antiretroviral therapy for HIV infection in infants and children: towards universal access. Recommendations for a public health approach.

Historical accounts and recent epidemiologic studies have suggested a mutually aggravating relationship between malnutrition and infection. In protein-energy malnutrition, there is a significant impairment of several aspects of immunity, including cell-mediated immune responses, secretory immunoglobulin A antibody production, phagocyte function, complement system, antibody affinity and cytokine production. Several micronutrients play a crucial role in maintenance of optimum immune responses. On the other hand, excessive intake of nutrients also impairs immunity. Animals fed diets lacking in nucleotides have lower immune responses than controls but there is no enhancement of immunity when the diet contains large amounts of nucleotides. These observations have considerable practical importance in terms of designing feeding formulas.

Sobha Kumari

Papers

Nutrition and immunity: an overview.

Effects of nutrition on the immune system.