Prevention and Treatment of Chronic Severe Infantile Malnutrition (Kwashiorkor)

Biochemical Effects of Protein-Calorie Malnutrition in Man

“…While studies of lipid metabolism are limited , those of carbohydrate are more so. This is extraordinary since hypoglycemia has been considered a major cause of death in Kwashiorkor (111,170,254,255). As reviewed by Viteri et al (18), glucose absorption is normal, but glu cose tolerance tests are abnormal, with prolonged hyperglycemia and ter minal hypoglycemia.…”

“…In protein-calorie malnu trition, the absorption of fat apparently is variably affected. Gomez et al (170) in Mexico found it severely impaired, being 48 per cent of that in gested on admission to the hospital and rising to 79 per cent on recovery. Two groups in the Belgian Congo found fat absorption to be 69 per cent (216) and 82 per cent (175) on admission to the hospital, increasing to the normal level of 92 per cent with recovery.…”

“…(93), and Viteri et al (18). Severe malnutrition in adults is still indigenous in some countries such as India (279) and Africa (170,300,301), or incidental to the tyranny and oppression of war upon selected population groups, as in Germany during and after the second World War (302). Severe under nutrition also has been produced experimentally in normal young male volunteers (181), and studied in mental patients who refused to eat or had anorexia nervosa (303,304) .…”

Nutrition and Infection Field Study in Guatemalan Villages, 1959–1964

“…Field tests at the beginning and end of the study (Table 1) showed no striking differences among the villages in proportions of children in the several degrees of malnutrition as determined by weight for age. 4 A slight gain was noted among children of the feeding village, the treatment village maintained the status quo, and the control village lost ground slightly. Any observed differences in morbidity and mortality presumably rest on some other basis than clearcut changes in degree of malnutrition, at least as measured crudely by the Gomez classification.…”

“…Any observed differences in morbidity and mortality presumably rest on some other basis than clearcut changes in degree of malnutrition, at least as measured crudely by the Gomez classification. 4 Third, the food supplement taken by individual children varied in amount from less than one fourth of the offered quantities to almost full participation, and it also varied from time to time. Attack rates for the two commonest infections-respiratory disease (as illustrated later) and acute diarrheal disease--followed the same progression: greatest for children receiving less than 25% of added food and more favorable for those having larger amounts.…”