Nutritional status of surgical patients.

Nutritional status of 80 preoperative patients from programmed surgeries of hernias and lithiasis was studied by anthropometric and biochemical parameters. Nutritional deficiences related to pathology were not expected in these patients. Results were as follows: 77% of the population showed overweight, being 15% obese. Prevalent protein intake, evaluated by the urea nitrogen/creatinine ratio, was adequate in 87.5% of the patients; however, patients presented 72% of albumin, 52% of prealbumin and 50% of REP below reference values. Transferrin, ceruloplasmin, alpha(2)-macroglobulin and haptoglobin were not decreased. Assessment of vitamin A, carotenes and vitamin C showed plasmatic levels below reference values in 16% of the patients for vitamin A, 5% for carotenes and 27% for vitamin C. Respect to calcium status, data of calcium/creatinine ratio show deficiency in 45% of the population. Respect to iron, the nutritional status was in general adequate, patients at risk being 5% by Htc, 11% by Hb, 5% by TS% and 12.5% by FEP; women showed over twice abnormal values than men. Although some isolated relations were observed, in this population sex, age and pathology were variable that did not affect in a relevant way the nutritional status. In spite of the individual analysis of each nutrient did not show important deficiencies, the analysis by patient showed that only a few of them (7%) presented an optimal biochemical profile with all the studied parameters within the reference values.