[Nutritional status of patients with HIV infection. Spontaneous evolution during the hospital stay]

BASICS: Evaluate the nutritional status of HIV positive patients who are admitted to hospital for some acute process, and their evaluation, without nutritional support, during the admission.

Prospective study in HIV positive patients. Nutritional evaluation (on admission and on release); (1) anthropometric (weight, size, triceps, fold, circumference of the arm, and muscular circumference of the arm, and (2) biochemical (albumin, cholesterol, triglycerides, lymphocytes, pre-albumin, and transferrin). Statistical study: comparison of the paired means and chi squared test.

60 patients. Mean age 32 +/- 4.8 years, 76% men and 23% women. Staging: AIDS 84.8%, non-AIDS 15.2%. Main reason for admission: Infection (80%). Mean stay: 14 days +/- 9.5. Initial nutritional evaluation: normal: 1.7%, protein malnutrition: 5.3%, caloric malnutrition: 38.5%, mixed malnutrition: 54.3%, 85% of the patients refer weight loss. 21 patients (35%) were followed up. There were no significant differences in the anthropometric nor in the biochemical parameters, except in the levels of pre-albumin and transferrin, which improved (p < 0.001). Nutritional evaluation on release: normal: 9.5%, caloric malnutrition: 66.5%, mixed malnutrition: 23.7%. There were no cases of protein malnutrition.

The vast majority of the HIV+ patients who are admitted, are malnourished, and after curing the acute process, 90.5% of them remain malnourished. The anthropometric measurements, albumin, cholesterol, and triglycerides do not vary during the hospital admission, despite the treatment and the clinical improvement. The increase of proteins with a short half life is due to controlling the infection, which is why these are not good parameters for the nutritional evaluation in these patients.