Morphofunctional assessment of patient nutritional status: a global approach

Disease-related malnutrition represents an imbalance between the intake and the requirements of energy and nutrients. It produces a series of metabolic and functional changes in the body. There are multiple limitations in the classic parameters for nutrition assessment including body mass index, weight loss, food intake, or standard laboratory parameters such as albumin or lymphocytes. We can establish some points of interest in this new approach to nutrition focused on the assessment of nutritional status by evaluating changes in composition and function using parameters such as PhA and other electrical measurements of bioimpedance, dynamometry, functional tests, muscle ultrasound, or laboratory parameters such as CRP/prealbumin. Each of these parameters has a number of uses and limitations that should be understood when evaluating its ability to diagnose malnutrition as related to disease, its concordance with other tests, and its prognostic value. Emerging nutritional parameters for future use should be sensitive, specific, and interrelated to allow a better understanding of each patient's status at different time points during their disease.