Cholesterol less than 160 is associated with malnutrition. Transferrin less than 200, but this is confounded by iron status. Less than 1000 absolute lymphocytes is suggestive of severe malnutrition. The first type of protein calorie undernutrition I m going to talk about is kwashiorkor. This is pure protein starvation, wherein albumin is decreased.
Calories are often adequate and in fact people are often obese.
They are obese because the eat low protein density foods. They eat foods that are high in carbohydrates and The other type of malnutrition is cachexia, or marasmus type malnutrition characterized by a combined protein and calorie starvation. These people are just not getting enough food. There s always a history of weight loss and a cachectic appearance. Now an important point is that the body preferentially metabolized skeletal protein before it does visceral protein.