Liver chronic pathologies often courses with metabolic abnormalities of macronutrients leading to or aggravating a protein-energy malnutrition status. This review raised the major pathophysiologycal mechanisms related to the protein-energy malnutrition in chronic liver patients. By large the reduced dietary intake is the most accepted cause particularly among alcoholic patients. Moreover during the treatment prevails the iatrogenic anorexia by unpalatable (restricted) diets interpolated with long-lasting fastings of hospitalyzed patients. Intestinal fat malabsorption is a common finding whereas hypermetabolism can be found associated with an acute alcoholism. Hipoglycemia or insulin resistance, hypertriglyceridemia and liver steatosis are common findings as well as lower plasma proteins along with higher levels of ammonia, aromatic and sulfer amino acids leading to neurological outcomes. The knowledge of these metabolic changes allow proper dietary interventions toward reduced morbi-mortality of those patients.
Liver diseases; Protein-energy malnutrition
