Screening for Malnutrition (Undernutrition) in Primary Care

Excerpt

The Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM) has recently defined malnutrition as a condition having at least one of 3 phenotypic criteria, i.e., non-volitional weight loss, low body mass index and reduced muscle mass, as well as either reduced food intake assimilation (either poor oral intake or malabsorption) or disease usually associated with an inflammatory process (1).The GLIM consensus is important as it is unfortunately true that malnutrition remains a “Skeleton in the closet” as its presence is poorly recognized among older individuals (2, 3). Miller et al (4) have undertaken a systematic review of screening tools for malnutrition. They categorized unintentional weight loss as being due to 3 syndromes viz cachexia, malnutrition (limited intake or malabsorption) and sarcopenia. This was despite the fact that while sarcopenia is associated with muscle loss it is rarely associated with weight loss and is often associated with weight gain leading to sarcopenic obesity (5). …