Malnutrition is a significant risk factor for childhood infectious diseases in developing countries, including Papua New Guinea (PNG). Whilst the mechanisms are not fully understood there is little doubt that impairment of immune function is a major contributing factor in enhancing disease susceptibility in malnourished children. This susceptibility has been clearly shown for pneumonia in PNG. ...

A wound represents the interruption of the continuity of tissue that is followed by damage or cellular death. Wound healing occurs due to a competitive mechanism between the synthesis and lysis of collagen. Any factor that increases collagen lysis or reduces its synthesis may result in changes in the healing process, i.e., nutritional deficiencies. Phototherapies have been suggested as an effec...

In rats whose growth was restricted by rearing in large litters the skull was less affected than the spine and the brain case less than the face. No sex difference was apparent during undernutrition but on subsequent rehabilitation females had caught up to controls in four out of five skull measurements within 4 weeks and by the end of the experiment the skulls of the neonatally undernourished ...

We automatically associate hunger with not having enough to eat. We have all seen images of acutely undernourished people in disaster areas, and almost one billion people around the world are undernourished. However, not having enough to eat is only part of the problem of hunger. What experts refer to as ‘hidden hunger’ attracts less attention because it does not produce dramatic images, yet wh...

A considerable amount of energy may be saved by lowering the spontaneous locomotor activity when energy intakes are reduced. The results of the present study in rats undernourished for a period of 21 or 60 days and subsequently fed ad libitum diet did not show any differences in activity when compared to their respective control groups, either during the undernourished periods or well fed state...

BACKGROUND/AIM There are no recommendations for the optimal nutritional status assessment parameters (NSAPs) in the current literature. The aim of this study was to define the optimal NSAPs for nutritional status assessing in gastroenterological patients on hospital admission. METHODS Nutritional status of 612 gastroenterological patients was evaluated at the admission using 6 NSAPs: unintent...