Issues
Malnutrition creates many issues in the body of a person who begins to get nourishment again.
One aspect is Kwashiokor where protein consumption is low, even if there are enough calories that causes swelling and discomfort. Once a person is in this condition, their bodies don’t always accept the protien. The key solution is slow introduction of proteins.
Another issue is Refeeding syndrome where if nutrition is re-introduced too heavily, the body fails to properly adjust and causes a variety of health concerns. Care must be taken to not overfeed a person who has been malnourished.
Edema is part of each of these situations.
But for Kwasiokor – “Edema caused by malnutrition defines kwashiorkor, an acute form of childhood protein-energy malnutrition characterized by edema, irritability, anorexia, ulcerating dermatoses, and an enlarged liver with fatty infiltrates.”
Third Spacing
A kind of edema that a person who has been dehydrated experiences is called ‘third spacing‘. Fluids accumulate in tissue instead of being used by properly by cells. This means that even getting IVs may not help dehydration when a person is third spacing.
From Wikipedia:
Kwashiorkor is a severe form of malnutrition, caused by a deficiency in dietary protein. The extreme lack of protein causes an osmotic imbalance in the gastro-intestinal system causing swelling of the gut diagnosed as an edema or retention of water.[4]
Refeeding syndrome is a syndrome consisting of metabolic disturbances that occur as a result of reinstitution of nutrition to patients who are starved, severely malnourished or metabolically stressed due to severe illness. When too much food and/or liquid nutrition supplement is consumed during the initial four to seven days of refeeding, this triggers synthesis of glycogen, fat and protein in cells, to the detriment of serum (blood) concentrations of potassium, magnesium, and phosphorus.[2][3] Cardiac, pulmonary and neurological symptoms can be signs of refeeding syndrome…..
“Third spacing” is the abnormal accumulation of fluid into an extracellular and extravascular space. In medicine, the term is often used with regard to loss of fluid into interstitial spaces, such as with burns or edema, but it can also refer to fluid shifts into a body cavity (transcellular space), such as ascites and pleural effusions. With regard to severe burns, fluids may pool on the burn site (i.e. fluid lying outside of the interstitial tissue, exposed to evaporation) and cause depletion of the fluids. With pancreatitis or ileus, fluids may “leak out” into the peritoneal cavity, also causing depletion of the intracellular, interstitial or vascular compartments.Patients who undergo long, difficult operations in large surgical fields can collect third-space fluids and become intravascularly depleted despite large volumes of intravenous fluid and blood replacement.