[Epidemiology of malnutrition]

The World Health Organisation classifies malnutrition worldwide as the greatest threat to public health. An expert report of the Council of Europe clearly showed that malnutrition in hospitalised patients is a real existing problem in all European countries, including Switzerland. According to the literature, malnutrition is prevalent in 20 - 60 % of patients on hospital admission. Malnutrition increases with age and is found more and more in obese subjects. Unintentional weight loss is the main feature of disease-related malnutrition in normalweight and obese individuals. The nutritional problem in obese persons manifests itself through nutrient imbalances and micronutrient deficiency. The cause for nutritional deficiencies is a hypercaloric diet with its energy - dense, but qualitative low - value foods. Depending on the extent of obesity, certain micronutrients are to be critically evaluated. It has been proven that for instance the vitamin D and iron metabolism are pathologically impaired by the increased fatty tissue. In Switzerland, the proportion of people under 20 years has decreased from 40.7 % (1900) to 20.6 % (2011), whereas in the elderly over 64 years, an increase from 5.8 % to 17.2 % has been recorded. In the very elderly people over 80 years, the increase from 0.5 % to 4.8 % has been particularly pronounced. Because malnutrition increases with age, it will be an important issue in the future and hospitals, nursing homes and home care will be particularly affected.