Nutritional disorder

The term nutritional disorder summarizes various diseases that, in the broadest sense, are associated with a disruption of food intake.

They can be divided into mental and physical nutritional disorders.

Mental nutritional disorders

Mental nutritional disorders include diseases in which the intake of food is physiologically possible, but not wanted.

These include anorexia and bulimia , but also binge eating, which lead to obesity . Most often women are affected by mental nutritional disorders.

Physical nutritional disorders

These include disturbances in the intake and utilization of food. In addition to malabsorption (e.g. fructose malabsorption ) (no or poor absorption of nutrients), various enzyme defects belong to this type of disease. So z. B. lactose intolerance , hereditary fructose intolerance or phenylketonuria .

Inflammatory diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, such as ulcerative colitis , Crohn's disease or celiac disease , often lead to selective absorption disorders, with calcium loss leading to secondary osteoporosis .

Older people often experience nutritional disorders, which are caused on the one hand by a poor feeling of hunger and more often by badly fitting dentures . These people can starve to death within our affluent society because they are no longer interested in eating.

This article is about a health issue. It is not used for self-diagnosis and does not replace a diagnosis by a doctor. Please note the information on health issues !