Alcoholic Liver Disease and Malnutrition

Malnutrition, both protein energy malnutrition (PEM) and deficiencies in individual nutrients, is a frequent complication of alcoholic liver disease (ALD). Severity of malnutrition correlates with severity of ALD. Malnutrition also occurs in patients with cirrhosis due to etiologies other than alcoh...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research clinical and experimental research, 2011-05, Vol.35 (5), p.815-820
Main Authors: McClain, Craig J., Barve, Shirish S., Barve, Ashutosh, Marsano, Luis
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Alcohol
Alcoholism and acute alcohol poisoning
Animals
Biological and medical sciences
Encephalopathy
Energy Intake - physiology
Gastroenterology. Liver. Pancreas. Abdomen
Humans
Liver
Liver cirrhosis
Liver diseases
Liver Diseases, Alcoholic - complications
Liver Diseases, Alcoholic - metabolism
Liver Diseases, Alcoholic - therapy
Liver. Biliary tract. Portal circulation. Exocrine pancreas
Malnutrition
Malnutrition - complications
Malnutrition - metabolism
Malnutrition - therapy
Medical sciences
Metabolic diseases
Micronutrients
Nutritional Status - physiology
Nutritional Support - methods
Other diseases. Semiology
Other nutritional diseases (malnutrition, nutritional and vitamin deficiencies...)
Toxicology
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Summary:Malnutrition, both protein energy malnutrition (PEM) and deficiencies in individual nutrients, is a frequent complication of alcoholic liver disease (ALD). Severity of malnutrition correlates with severity of ALD. Malnutrition also occurs in patients with cirrhosis due to etiologies other than alcohol. The mechanisms for malnutrition are multifactorial, and malnutrition frequently worsens in the hospital due to fasting for procedures and metabolic complications of liver disease, such as hepatic encephalopathy. Aggressive nutritional support is indicated in inpatients with ALD, and patients often need to be fed through an enteral feeding tube to achieve protein and calorie goals. Enteral nutritional support clearly improves nutrition status and may improve clinical outcome. Moreover, late‐night snacks in outpatient cirrhotics improve nutritional status and lean body mass. Thus, with no FDA‐approved therapy for ALD, careful nutritional intervention should be considered as frontline therapy.
ISSN:0145-6008
1530-0277
DOI:10.1111/j.1530-0277.2010.01405.x