13/07/2025
nutrition
Underlying medical conditions:
Certain diseases and medications can affect nutrient absorption and metabolism.
Consequences of Nutritional Diseases:
Nutritional diseases can have a wide range of consequences, including:
Growth and developmental problems:
Undernutrition can stunt growth and impair cognitive development, especially in children.
Increased risk of infections:
Malnutrition weakens the immune system, making individuals more vulnerable to infections.
Chronic diseases:
Nutritional deficiencies or excesses can contribute to the development of chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and some cancers.
Impaired physical and mental function:
Nutritional deficiencies can lead to fatigue, weakness, poor concentration, and reduced physical capacity.
Increased healthcare costs:
Treatment of nutritional diseases and their complications can be expensive.
Reduced quality of life:
Nutritional diseases can negatively impact overall well-being and quality of life.
Treatment and Prevention:
Treatment and prevention of nutritional diseases depend on the specific condition and may involve:
Dietary modifications: Adjusting food intake to meet individual nutrient needs.
Nutritional supplementation: Providing specific vitamins, minerals, or other nutrients.
Therapeutic diets: Following specialized meal plans to manage specific conditions.
Lifestyle changes: Adopting healthy habits, such as regular physical activity and avoiding smoking.
Medications: In some cases, medications may be necessary to treat the underlying condition or manage complications.
Public health interventions: Addressing food insecurity, promoting healthy eating habits, and implementing
Malnutrition
Malnutrition is an imbalance between the nutrients your body needs to function and the nutrients it gets. It can mean undernutrition or overnutrition. You can be malnourished from an overall lack of calories, or you might have a protein, vitamin or mineral deficiency. You might also have more excess calories than your body knows what to do with.
What is malnutrition?
Your body needs a variety of nutrients, and in certain amounts, to maintain its tissues and its many functions. Malnutrition happens when the nutrients it gets don’t meet these needs. You can be malnourished from an overall lack of nutrients, or you may have an abundance of some kinds of nutrients but lack other kinds. Even the lack of a single vitamin or mineral can have serious health consequences for your body. On the other hand, having an excess of nutrients can also cause problems.
What are the 4 types of malnutrition?
Malnutrition can mean undernutrition or overnutrition. It can also mean an imbalance of macronutrients (proteins, carbohydrates, fats) or micronutrients (vitamins and minerals).
Undernutrition
Undernutrition is what most people think of when they think of malnutrition. Undernutrition is a deficiency of nutrients. You may be undernourished if you don’t have an adequate diet, or if your body has trouble absorbing enough nutrients from your food. Undernutrition can cause visible wasting of fat and muscle, but it can also be invisible. You can be overweight and undernourished.
Macronutrient undernutrition
Also called protein-energy undernutrition, this is a deficiency of macronutrients: proteins, carbohydrates and fats. Macronutrients are the main building blocks of your diet, the nutrients that your body relies on to produce energy to maintain itself. Without them — or even just one of them — your body soon begins to fall apart, breaking down tissues and shutting down nonessential functions to conserve its low energy.
Micronutrient undernutrition
Micronutrients are vitamins and minerals. Your body needs these in smaller amounts, but it does need them, for all types of functions. Many people are mildly deficient in certain vitamins and minerals from a lack of variety in their diet. You might not notice a mild vitamin deficiency affecting you, but as micronutrient undernutrition becomes more severe, it can begin to have serious and lasting effects.
Overnutrition
The World Health Organization has recently added overnutrition to its definition of malnutrition to recognize the detrimental health effects that can be caused by excessive consumption of nutrients. This includes the effects of overweight and obesity, which are strongly associated with a list of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). It also includes the toxicity that can result from overdosing specific micronutrients.
Macronutrient overnutrition
When your body has an excess of protein, carbohydrate and/or fat calories to use, it stores them away as fat cells in your adipose tissue. But when your body runs out of tissue for storage, the fat cells themselves have to grow. Enlarged fat cells are associated with chronic inflammation and with a host of metabolic disorders that follow. These can lead to NCDs such as diabetes mellitus, coronary artery disease and stroke.
Micronutrient overnutrition
You can actually overdose on vitamin and mineral supplements. More research is needed to explain how this happens and how much is too much of a certain vitamin or mineral. In general, micronutrient overnutrition is uncommon and doesn’t occur from diet alone. But if you take mega doses of certain supplements, it can have toxic effects. It’s a good idea to check with your healthcare provider first.
Who does malnutrition affect?
In its broadest sense, malnutrition can affect anyone. Lack of knowledge of nutrition, lack of access to a variety of foods, sedentary modern lifestyles and economic disadvantages are all common contributors to malnutrition. Certain populations are more at risk of certain types of malnutrition.
Populations more at risk of undernutrition include:
Poor and low income. Whether in a developed country like the U.S. or in developing countries with fewer resources overall, poorer communities have less access to adequate nutrition.
Children. Children have greater nutritional needs than adults in order to grow and develop. Disadvantaged children are especially at risk of undernutrition and its consequences.
Chronically ill. Many chronic illnesses can directly affect appetite and/or calorie absorption. Some increase your caloric needs. Spending time in the hospital is also a risk factor for undernutrition.
Elderly. As adults advance in age, their nutrition can deteriorate for several reasons, including reduced mobility, institutionalization, reduced appetite and reduced absorption of nutrients.
Populations more at risk of overnutrition include:
Poor and low income. In developed countries, poorer communities often have easier access to fast foods, which are high in calories but low in nutritional value, than they have to nutritious whole foods. This can lead to macronutrient overnutrition with micronutrient undernutrition.
Sedentary. Desk jobs, family obligations, health and social factors that keep people sitting all day instead of out and moving about can lead to significant weight gain.
Symptoms and Causes
What are the signs and symptoms of malnutrition?
Undernutrition may look like:
Low body weight, prominent bones, depleted fat and muscle.
Thin arms and legs with edema (swelling with fluid) in your belly and face.
Stunted growth and intellectual development in children.
Weakness, faintness and fatigue.
Irritability, apathy or inattention.
Dry, inelastic skin, rashes and lesions.
Brittle hair, hair loss and hair pigment loss.
Frequent and severe infections.
Low body temperature, unable to get warm.
Low heart rate and blood pressure.
Overnutrition might look like:
Obesity.
High blood pressure.
Insulin resistance.
Heart disease.
What are the causes of malnutrition?
Undernutrition is usually caused by not eating enough nutrients. It can also be caused by certain medical conditions that prevent your body from absorbing nutrients.
You might have trouble getting enough nutrients if you have:
How is malnutrition diagnosed?
Physical observation and a history of your diet and health conditions are often enough to diagnose protein-energy undernutrition or overnutrition. Healthcare providers may measure your BMI or measure a child’s arm circumference to help understand the extent of the problem. If possible, they will take a blood sample to test for specific micronutrient imbalances. Micronutrient undernutrition often accompanies macronutrient undernutrition, and it can accompany macronutrient overnutrition too. A blood test will also diagnose the rare case of micronutrient overnutrition if you have those symptoms.
