Helen ZhangA recent study involving researchers from the University of Alberta indicates that malnutrition is often overlooked in patients with obesity and osteoarthritis.
The study aimed to better detect and understand what malnutrition looks like in patients that are often overlooked by health providers for nutritional deficiencies. Additionally, the study explored how malnutrition exacerbates the symptoms of osteoarthritis in patients with obesity.
The study looked at 46 people who suffer from sarcopenic obesity, a condition which involves low muscle mass, low muscle function, and excess fat.
According to Flavio Vieira, a co-author of the study and a postdoctoral fellow in the faculty of medicine and dentistry, these conditions are “usually underrated and underlooked in [these] populations, because it is assumed that those with larger bodies don’t have low muscle mass.”
“[Medical professionals] overlook this in my view, because they just assume that someone living in a larger body, or with obesity, is well nourished, and that they don’t need to look into nutritional deficiencies, that they just need to lose weight independently of the quality of their weight and this is not the way to go.”
According to the study, when malnourished patients are often overlooked as being well or sufficiently nourished, the increase in risk for furthering symptoms of coinciding diseases, such as osteoarthritis, elevates.
Although serious consideration of malnutrition in this regard is only recent, there is significant progress being made in medicine for those suffering from sarcopenic obesity, osteoarthritis, and other joint diseases.
“Your [Body Max Index] does not define your health,” Vieira says
When asked if he was optimistic for the future of medical advancements in this area, Vieira said he believes that awareness is increasing, but there’s still “a long way to go.”
“The first international consensus to identify sarcopenic obesity was released only in 2022, so it’s pretty recent.”
Vieira and his colleagues used the Global Leader Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM) assessment to frame research and questions. Using this type of cohesive framework allows for a wider array of patients to be considered malnourished, and thus treated.
According to him, it is better for a patients with obesity and osteoarthritis to receive treatment from “a multi-professional team, [which] can combine a registered dietitian, an exercise physiologist, a psychologist, and a physician, so as to have better control over everything that’s happening in your health, and not just your weight.”
According to Vieira, it’s important to promote a comprehensive understanding of what malnutrition may look like, as well as preventative steps to avoid it, to not only health care providers, but the general public as well.
“I totally believe that information is the key, both for the health–care professionals that are treating those patients and also for the patients to understand that it’s not just the number on a scale that will define your health, your [Body Mass Index] (BMI) does not define your health.”
