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Immunological Function and Nutritional Assessment
Author(s) -
Dominioni Lorenzo,
Dionigi Renzo
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
journal of parenteral and enteral nutrition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.935
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 1941-2444
pISSN - 0148-6071
DOI - 10.1177/014860718701100509
Subject(s) - malnutrition , medicine , immunologic tests , intensive care medicine , parenteral nutrition , immunologic function , acute phase protein , immunology , immune system , inflammation
Theoretically, a large number of tests of immunologic functions could be used for nutritional assessment. However, many of these immunologic tests require specialized laboratory skills and take a long time to perform. These tests provide little additional information to the clinician concerning the nutritional status of the patient, compared to the data that can be obtained from a few simple, selected immunologic measurements. Only a few immunologic tests are sufficiently simple, reproducible, and reliable indicators of nutritional status to be of practical value for routine nutritional assessment. These are the total lymphocyte count and skin tests. At present, all of the other immunologic measurements that have been reviewed should be considered as research tools for nutritional assessment. Immunological tests can be affected by many clinical variables unrelated to nutrition, such as specific pathologic conditions, immunodepressive therapies, accidental or surgical trauma, and infection, and this fact should be considered when using immunological tests to assess nutritional status. Malnutrition suppresses the acute‐phase response of plasma proteins. The measurement of the acute‐phase response of selected acute‐phase proteins can be a functional measurement of nutritional status. (Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition 11:70S‐72S, 1987)