Nutritional Assessment in Patients Affected by Mitochondrial Cytopathy

Background

Mitochondrial diseases are a group of genetic disorders. The prognosis for patients with mitochondrial myopathies varies greatly, depending largely on the type of disease and the degree of involvement of various organs. This situation can lead into malnutrition and worse the outcome. In the literature there are no data, which deal with malnutrition or nutritional intake in patients with mitochondrial myopathy. Sorensen et al. assessed the malnutrition risk in European hospitals and showed that 45% of patients with neurological illness (neurological vascular disease excluded) are at high risk of malnutrition. Furthermore, the patient at risk exhibited higher rates of complications and mortality. These findings suggest that malnutrition play an important role in the clinical outcome of this patient's population, reflecting the investigators' many years of experience. In several case reports, it was shown that malnutrition itself could aggravate myopathy. Sometimes there are challenging symptoms facing patients with mitochondrial myopathy that interfere with obtaining balanced and healthy nutrition, such as fatigue, muscle weakness, dysmotility, dysphagia, nausea and vomiting, ataxia, and reflux. In addition, in the investigators' clinical experience, they see many patients who describe that some specific food intake would even modify their symptoms.

This is an observational cohort study, and the investigators expect a total sample size of 30 patients and 20 healthy age- and sex-matched controls. The entire study will be conducted during the period from first of October 2014 till End of March 2015.

The investigator is a pharmacy student (master level) interested in clinical nutrition. She will collect the data und do all measurements along with the support of the clinical nutrition research team of the University Hospital of Bern. The investigator will contact the patients individually and arrange a suitable timetable for the interview and examination. Sex, age, current medical conditions, current myopathy symptoms, current gastrointestinal symptoms, unintentional weight loss, eating and drinking habits, living and social situation, daily activity, medications (in particular those drugs that interfere with the mitochondrial metabolism as valproic acid, statins, and certain antibiotics like aminoglycosides, etc.) smoking, alcohol intake, and main diagnosis will be recorded. The investigators will preform the following measurements: basic demographic data, structured patient interviews, dietary questionnaire, nutritional risk screening, quality of life, physical functioning, body composition, energy expenditure, blood and urine analysis. The study will be conducted in accordance with the ethical guidelines of the 1957 Declaration of Helsinki, and informed consent will be obtained from all participants. The healthy volunteers and patients will not be exposed to any risk due to this study.

Objective