A Study Of Chronic Pulmonary Obstructive Disease & Nutritional Support To Patients At A Tertiary Care Centre IGMC Shimla, India

Abstract

As a result of the disease's symptoms and persistent, systemic inflammation, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) mostly affects the lungs, but it also has numerous extrapulmonary repercussions, such as intricate physical and metabolic changes. Diminished exercise ability, elevated nutritional needs, modified metabolic processes, and inadequate dietary intake have all been linked to these alterations. This means that nutritional depletion in COPD is complex and can include energy imbalances (weight loss), protein imbalances (sarcopenia), and periods of noticeably elevated inflammation (pulmonary cachexia), all of which can exacerbate nutritional losses. This means that there may be a loss of fat-free mass (FFM) as well as fat-mass (FM). There is strong evidence that energy and protein imbalances can be corrected with nutritional support, in the form of oral nutritional supplements (ONS), improving nutritional status and functional ability. However, it is likely that focused multi-modal therapies are needed to address energy and protein imbalance, particular dietary deficiencies, lowered androgens, and targeted exercise training in order to treat the aetiology of sarcopenia, frailty, and cachexia. Moreover, disease-course-based therapies are probably the key to successfully treating the prevalent and expensive issue of nutritional depletion in COPD.