Glycaemic control: diabetes/stress hyperglycaemia/resistance to insulin.

Diabetes mellitus refers to a group of chronic and complex metabolic disorders that have in common the existence of elevated glucose levels, which are responsible for the disease’s clinical effects.

Diabetic patients have a greater risk of suffering malnutrition through altered metabolism of hydrates, lipids and proteins. Glucose utilisation is lowered, lipolysis of fatty tissue is activated and proteolysis of muscular tissue is also activated.

Malnutrition leads to:

• greater risk of complications poorly controlled glycaemia, greater
• risk of infection
• longer stays in hospital
• higher health cost

Nutrition is the centrepiece in the treatment of patients with diabetes since it ensures proper control of glycaemia, thus helping to prevent the emergence of complications.

Stress hyperglycaemia, also called stress diabetes or acute injury diabetes, is hyperglycaemia that appears in a critical patient or in a patient hospitalised for a non-critical illness without previous antecedents of type 1 or 2 diabetes mellitus. This hyperglycaemia in hospital patients receiving artificial nutrition poses a significant problem in both in-patient and out-patient care due to its high prevalence and possible deleterious effects on morbidity and mortality, even independently of the previous presence of diabetes.

Benefits of specific formulas for diabetes:

• better glycaemic control
• lessening of glycaemic variability
• lower need for insulin
• shorter hospital stays
• lower health costs