Malnutrition

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Basics

• Summary
• Start Here
• Diagnosis and Tests
• Prevention and Risk Factors

Learn More

• Related Issues

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Research

• Clinical Trials
• Journal Articles

Resources

• Find an Expert

For You

• Children
• Teenagers
• Seniors
• Patient Handouts

Summary

Food provides the energy and nutrients you need to be healthy. If you don't get enough nutrients -- including proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, and minerals - you may suffer from malnutrition.

Causes of malnutrition include:

• Lack of specific nutrients in your diet. Even the lack of one vitamin can lead to malnutrition.
• An unbalanced diet
• Certain medical problems, such as malabsorption syndromes and cancers

Symptoms may include fatigue, dizziness, and weight loss. Or, you may have no symptoms. To diagnose the cause of the problem, your doctor may do blood tests and a nutritional assessment. Treatment may include replacing the missing nutrients and treating the underlying cause.

Start Here

• Hunger and Malnutrition (Nemours Foundation)
• Undernutrition (Merck & Co., Inc.)

Diagnosis and Tests

• Albumin Test (American Association for Clinical Chemistry)
• Malnutrition Tests (American Association for Clinical Chemistry)
• Prealbumin Test (American Association for Clinical Chemistry)

Prevention and Risk Factors

• Comprehensive Metabolic Panel (American Association for Clinical Chemistry)

Related Issues

• Iodine Deficiency (American Thyroid Association) Also in Spanish
• Nutrition in Cancer Care (PDQ) (National Cancer Institute) Also in Spanish
• Pernicious Anemia (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute)
• Vitamin Deficiency Anemia (Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research)

Clinical Trials

• ClinicalTrials.gov: Malnutrition (National Institutes of Health)

Journal Articles References and abstracts from MEDLINE/PubMed (National Library of Medicine)

• Article: Hunger, Health, and Compassion.
• Article: Correspondence of folate dietary intake and biomarker data.
• Article: Demographic, lifestyle, and genetic determinants of circulating concentrations of 25-hydroxyvitamin...
• Malnutrition -- see more articles

Find an Expert

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Also in Spanish

Children

• Failure to Thrive (For Parents) (Nemours Foundation) Also in Spanish

Teenagers

• Hunger and Malnutrition (Nemours Foundation)

Seniors

• Preventing Malnutrition in Older Adults (American Academy of Family Physicians)
• Senior Health: How to Prevent and Detect Malnutrition (Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research)

Patient Handouts

• Beriberi (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish
• Kwashiorkor (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish
• Malnutrition (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish
• Pellagra (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish
• Pica (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish
• Scurvy (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish