Nutritional Support in Patients With Systemic Sclerosis

Medical Nutrition Therapy for Patients With Advanced Systemic Sclerosis (MNT PASS): A Pilot Intervention Study

“…The direct impact of a nutrition intervention among nutritionally impaired patients with SSc has been assessed by only 2 other studies. Ortiz‐Santamaria et al 34 recently reported the effects of a nutrition intervention among 9 patients with SSc who were classified as “high risk” for malnutrition using the MUST tool. No significant changes in BMI or QOL occurred among participants.…”

“…No significant changes in BMI or QOL occurred among participants. GI symptoms were not systematically measured 34 . Krause and colleagues 35 assessed malnutrition in 124 participants with SSc using BMI and LBM assessed by bioelectrical impedance (BIA) to evaluate nutrition status and mortality.…”

Association between hypovitaminosis D and systemic sclerosis: True or fake?

“…About supplementary intake many data suggests vitamin D supplementation not to protect against deficiency [14,42,43] in SSc patients; however, it remains harmless and inexpensive to administer it.…”

“…Major efforts have been done to minimize the effect on calcium metabolism and maximize the effect of immune modulation in these molecules. Albeit interesting, all the results provided in this field are rather far from an application on clinical practice [6,[30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45].…”

Quality of life in systemic sclerosis

“…To improve the quality of life in patients with SSc is important to develop some strategies toward general SSc self-management, better handling with emotional distress, managing body image distress, physical and occupational therapy for hands, fatigue and energy management, as well as managing sleep and sexual function problems [8]. Dietary interventions, like iron and vitamin D supplementation, didn't interfere with psychological assessment or quality of life [58]. Although, a systematic review highlights that experimental studies in humans indicate beneficial effects of vitamin D supplementation in reducing the severity of disease activity, variability in administration may reduce its positive effects and the dose of hormone supplied in some trials may be insufficient to control the autoimmune aggression or to prevent the onset of disease [59].…”