Nutritional recommendations to anorexia nervosa: integrative review

Abstract

Introduction: Among the eating disorders, Anorexia Nervosa presents itself as a relevant problem for the field of public health. It is estimated that its incidence is, in women, 08 per 100 thousand and that its prevalence is between 0.5 and 3.7%, in this same population. It mainly affects adolescents, who reduce food intake due to a morbid fear of gaining weight, reaching extreme degrees of cachexia, starvation and even death. Objective: To bring up to date, through an integrative review, the state of the nutritional recommendations for patients with Anorexia Nervosa. Methods: The following database was used: SciELO; PubMed; and LILACS. The keywords “Eating Disorders’ ’and“ Anorexia Nervosa ’’ were used to clarify and define diseases. As for the search for nutritional behaviors, “Nutritional Therapy x Eating Disorders’ ’and“ Nutritional Therapy x Anorexia Nervosa ’’. Twelve articles were selected to compose the corpus of the present work. Results and Discussion: For weight gain in malnourished patients, an increase of 500-700g / week is recommended, and for those with moderate malnutrition, 900-1300g / week is recommended. For energy prescription recommendations were found between 1000-1200kcal / day, as well as using 20-40kcal / kg in relation to the patient's weight, with gradual caloric evolution, being between 200-300kcal every 2-3 days until reaching 70-100kcal / kg in patient weight / day. Conclusion: Patients with anorexia need a hypercaloric, hyperproteic dietary prescription and standardization in the evolution of the food supply to guarantee weight gain, as well as the evaluation of laboratory tests periodically, for early diagnosis of nutritional deficiencies.