A study of nutritional assessment of newly diagnosed tuberculosis patients in a tertiary care hospital of Tripura, India

Background: Tuberculosis kills more than any infection in India. TB is a serious public health problem in India. Tuberculosis causes immense morbidity. The mortality rate of this disease is also very high. Tuberculosis causes a great distress to the patients. To control this infection is a challenge to the health care facility of India. A lot of steps are being taken at various levels to end this disease. Still a huge number of patients are dying everyday from these deadly diseases. Out of so many recognised risk factors, malnutrition is considered to be as one of the most important among them. The immunity of a malnourished patient is suppressed. When the patient’s immunity is ineffective, the conversion of latent tuberculosis to diseases happens. Malnutrition invites tuberculosis and tuberculosis again causes morbidity, so there is a complex relation between this two. Malnutrition and tuberculosis are both problems of considerable magnitude in most of the underdeveloped regions of the world.Methods: In this cross sectional hospital based study involving 400 newly diagnosed Tuberculosis cases were taken. Their nutritional status was measured by BMI.Results: It was found that 66% of the study population is having malnutrition (BMI <18.5kg/m2). Malnutrition was more in females (71%). Mean BMI is 17.9Kg/m2. Mean height of the population is 1.53 meters.Conclusions: Nutritional supplementation may represent a novel approach for fast recovery in tuberculosis patients. In addition, raising nutritional status of population may prove to be an effective measure to control tuberculosis in underdeveloped areas of world. This study has demonstrated that half of newly diagnosed adult TB patients were malnourished at the time of starting treatment, with more than a quarter having moderate to severe malnutrition