European nutrition experts call for greater attention towards malnutrition

Professor Olle Ljungqvist, President of the European Society of Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism (ESPEN), and Co-chair of the European Nutrition for Health Allliance (ENHA) spoke to more than 1,200 delegates at the European ‘Fight Against Malnutrition’ Symposium during this year’s 31^st ESPEN Congress in Vienna. Professor Ljungqvist opened proceedings by stating that: “The ‘Fight Against Malnutrition’ is getting stronger day by day and real progress is being made to address the large but often hidden problem of malnutrition in Europe.”

Professor Ljungqvist reminded the audience of some shocking statistics regarding the extent of malnutrition in Europe, specifically that 5% of the general population is malnourished and that in the elderly over 65 years this proportion rises to 15%. In hospitals malnutrition affects a staggering 40% of all patients and in care homes it is even higher at around 60%. Professor Ljungqvist added that “as many as 30 million Europeans (20 million in the European Union) could be malnourished and the health-related costs of this could be as high as €170 billion per year (€120 billion in the European Union).” In a call-to-action he concluded: “Malnutrition can be prevented and treated and we as nutrition experts have a mission to do something about malnutrition in hospitals, care homes and communities.”

Changes in attitude and practice are driven by guidelines and to enhance these and focus greater attention towards malnutrition, Professor Ljungqvist announced two new annual ESPEN nutritional research grants. This year’s grant winners were Dr Janet Baxter, representing the ESPEN Home Artificial Nutrition special interest group, and Professor Berthold Koletzko of the Department of Paediatrics, Ludwig Maximilians University Clinic, Munich. Their research will seek to achieve a greater understanding of the quality-of-life implications for patients living at home on parenteral nutrition and the inadequately understood issue of malnutrition in hospitalised children, respectively. The ESPEN ‘Nutrition Day’ initiative has been successfully focussing attention on the issue of malnutrition in more than 30 countries worldwide. Professor Michael Hiesmayr decribed the large nutritional database, including information on 75,000 patients, that is now proving very useful in tracking outcomes following nutritional intervention. For example, the database has demonstrated an improvement in the percentage of ‘patients eating all of their lunch’ from 30-55% from 2006 to 2008.