Nutrition and pharmacokinetics of medicines

Caloric-protein severe malnutrition is a condition in which many nutritional deficiencies simultaneously occur, constituting a public health problem and, in practice, explains the high morbidity and mortality rates in the population of children, especially in developing countries. Approximately one-half of the total population of the world is estimated to have suffered and survived a period of moderate or advanced malnutrition during childhood. It is estimated that about 1000 million children under the age of 15 years who lived in 1980, about 400 million did not receive an adequate diet, because in their societies the same factors that interfere with the correct distribution of available foods prevailed. Due to the effect of malnutrition on the pharmacokinetics of drugs analyzed in this chapter, it is advisable to individualize the therapeutic regimens, to optimize its therapeutic management in pediatric patients principally in those who are under severe malnutrition.