Nutrición hospitalaria : organo oficial de la Sociedad Española de Nutrición Parenteral y Enteral
-
Review
[Selenium supplementation in critically ill patients: pharmacological issues and current evidence].
High dose intravenous selenium may be associated with a significant reduction in mortality among critically ill patients with systemic inflammation. Currently, parenteral selenium as sodium selenite seems to be a cornerstone of the antioxidant defence in the critically ill. So far, several clinical trials have evaluated the effects of selenium in monotherapy or as part of a multi-micronutrient approach, on relevant clinical end points for critically ill patients. ⋯ Clinical confirmation of the potentially advantageous synergism between selenium and glutamine may soon be forthcoming but the most appropriate and the optimum time of supplementation remains undetermined. Short-term intravenous selenite (bolus injection plus continuous infusion) has shown to be safe and capable of optimizing serum selenium and antioxidant selenoenzymes activities. However, additional dose-ranging trials are necessary to elucidate an optimal and safe posology with confirmed pharmacokinetic profiles before more definitive phase III trials can be conducted.
-
JUSTIFICATION AND OBJECTIVE: Identify changes in the nutritional status of hospitalized children is fundamental for the early establishment of interventions. This study aims at describing the prevalence of undernutrition at admission and over the weeks of in-hospital stay in pediatric patients and evaluate the association between nutritional status and length of in-hospital stay. ⋯ The prevalence of malnutrition by the W/S score was about half the prevalence found by the W/A and W/A indices, possibly reflecting a chronic impairment of the nutritional status. Undernutrition was confirmed as a health problem, once undernourished patients remained hospitalized for longer periods, which is a treatable problem as it was observed an improvement in the nutritional status rates over in-hospital stay.
-
Vitamin D deficiency represents an important public health problem, especially among elderly people, by increasing the morbimortality. Because of the importance of this, in the year 2001 the "Five Countries Study" was put in place, within the European OPTIFORD project (Towards a strategy for optimal vitamin D fortification). This cross-sectional and observational study aims at knowing the vitamin D status in adolescent and elder women from five European countries, including Spain, according to different dietary and behavioral habits. ⋯ The deficient status of vitamin D among the elderly female population has to be corrected, whenever possible, with appropriate sun exposure and an increase in vitamin D intake through the diet, assessing at each particular case the benefits of pharmacological supplementation.
-
Comparative Study
[Nutritional risk evaluation and establishment of nutritional support in oncology patients according to the protocol of the Spanish Nutrition and Cancer Group].
Cancer and its oncological treatment cause symptoms which increase the patients risk to suffer from malnutrition. This affects the patients health status negatively by increasing the number of complications, reducing the tolerance to the oncology treatment and a decrease of the patients quality of life. Motivated by this, a group of health professionals from several spanish regions met with the backing of the Sociedad Española de Nutrición Básica y Aplicada (SENBA) to address strategies to improve the quality of nutritional intervention in cancer patients. ⋯ The application of this protocol is useful, easy and could help detecting malnutrition in oncology patients. It provides the possibility to select those patients who can benefit from a specific nutritional intervention. If possible, the application of the protocol should be started immediatly after cancer is diagnosed. Nutritional support proves efficient for most of the patients.