Malnutrition management of hospitalized patients with diabetes/hyperglycemia and concurrent pathologies (general issues)

Abstract

Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a highly prevalent disease worldwide, generating an increasing clinical and economic burden due to its micro-and macrovascular complications. Frequently, people with diabetes are hospitalized for various pathologies. These patients generally have higher risk of complications, prolonged hospitalizations and mor-tality. An additional factor that worsens the prognosis in these patients is the concurrence of malnutrition, especially in elderly people. All this makes the management of these patients challenging and requires a specific nutritional approach, whose purpose is to cover the nutritional requirements while always maintaining glycemic control. The purpose of this work is to provide, based on the evidence available in the literature and clinical experience, consensus recommendations by eighteen experts in Endocrinology and Nutrition on the nutritional approach of hospitalized patients with diabetes/ hyperglycemia and compare the optimal management, based on these recommendations with bedside usual care according to a panel of Spanish doctors surveyed about their daily clinical practice. This first article of this extraor-dinary issue of the journal Nutrición Hospitalaria describes the methodology of the study and the results obtained regarding common issues for all pathologies.