
A survey commissioned by Nutricia, Danone’s medical nutrition arm, found that 65% of hospitalised Covid-19 patients experienced clinically significant weight loss, and only 50% received medical nutrition, with that figure falling to 15% at discharge from hospital.
A total of 453 adult patients who were hospitalised with Covid-19 across the UK, France, Spain, Italy and Germany took part in the research, which was conducted by IPSOS.
A longer stay in hospital was found to be linked to increased likelihood of clinically significant weight loss (>5%), and many patients reported on symptoms that could worsen their nutritional status, such as diarrhoea, loss of taste/smell and difficulty swallowing.
Nutricia said the findings, which were presented at the annual conference of the European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism (ESPEN) last week, revealed the need to better integrate nutrition into medical care to improve Covid-19 patient recovery in hospital and after discharge.
“Findings from this survey and clinical research to date underline that nutritional challenges and functional impairments are frequent in patients hospitalised with Covid-19, in hospital and after discharge,” Dr Patrick Kamphuis, senior medical affairs director at Nutricia, told Nutraingredients.
Low awareness of medical nutrition
He continued: “Nutritional therapy can positively contribute to clinical outcomes and quality of life for patients with a variety of conditions and diseases. Unfortunately, and independent of Covid-19, healthcare professional awareness of the role of medical nutrition is still low – today only about one out of three patients receive the nutritional care they need.”
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