Ananya Bhowmik¹*, Debnath Chaudhuri² and Subhasish Kamal Guha³

¹Centre of Excellence in HIV care, Calcutta School of Tropical Medicine, Kolkata, India
²Department of Biochemistry and Nutrition, All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health, Kolkata, India
³Department of Tropical Medicine, Calcutta School of Tropical Medicine, Kolkata, India

*Corresponding Author: Ananya Bhowmik, Centre of Excellence in HIV care, Calcutta School of Tropical Medicine, Kolkata, India.

Received: March 08, 2018; Published: May 17, 2018

Citation: Ananya Bhowmik., et al. “Nutritional Status of TB-HIV Co-Infected Patients Attending Antiretroviral Treatment Centre School of Tropical Medicine, Kolkata, India”. Acta Scientific Nutritional Health 2.6 (2018).

Abstract

Background: Malnutrition is common hallmark of HIV disease. It plays a synergistic role in immunosuppression which is initiated by HIV itself and malnutrition forms an independent risk factor for disease progression. Tuberculosis (TB) also weakens the nutritional status and increases morbidity and mortality. Thus, it is important to assess the nutritional status of HIV-infected and HIV-TB co-infected subjects. This cross-sectional study was aimed to compare the nutritional status of HIV-infected patients with or without active tuberculosis.

Methods: ART naïve patients were randomly selected from ART centre of School of Tropical Medicine, Kolkata, India. The baseline Body Mass Index (BMI), Grip Strength (GS), Triceps Skin Fold (TSF), mid upper arm circumference (MUAC), serum albumin, haemoglobin and CD4 count was documented. Energy and protein intake was evaluated using 24 hours recall method. All recruitee were evaluated for presence of Opportunistic Infections (OI). Active TB was diagnosed by the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Program (RNTCP) guideline of Government of India. Statistical analysis was done to compare the above baseline characteristics between HIV-TB co-infected and HIV mono-infected patients by using SPSS16.

Results: A consecutive number of 131HIV-infected patients were enrolled in study following written, informed consent. Active TB was diagnosed in 48 patients and the median CD4 count, serum albumin, haemoglobin and BMI of active TB patients were113 cell/μL, 3.25 gm/dl, 10 gm/dl and 16.14 Kg/m² respectively while those of non-TB patients were 205 cell/μL, 4gm/dl, 11.5 gm/dl and 18.13 Kg/m² respectively. All the TB infected patients were on TB treatment with RNTCP regimens. BMI (p = 0.00), GS (p = 0.04), TSF (p = 0.00), MUAC (p = 0.00), CD4 (p = 0.01), haemoglobin (p = 0.01) and serum albumin (p = 0.00) were significantly higher in case of non-TB patients. There was no significant difference in the calorie and protein intake of TB infected and uninfected patients (p = 0.32) and (p = 0.38) respectively.

Conclusion: HIV-TB co-infected patients have grossly compromised nutritional status and need immediate nutritional support in form of nutritional counselling and/or supplementation to improve their health status.

Keywords: Nutritional Status; Tuberculosis; HIV

Copyright: © 2018 Ananya Bhowmik., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.