Nutritional and eating disorders: Clinical impact and considerations during anesthesia procedures

Abstract

An increasing proportion of patients coming for anesthesia and surgery have some form of nutritional deficiency disorder which can have extremely variable presentation ranging from anorexia nervosa to obesity. All these nutritional disorders produce various pathophysiological changes in cardiovascular, respiratory, renal, endocrine, and immune systems, which make these patients highly susceptible to various anesthetic complications. The serious biochemical alterations and interaction of anesthetic drugs with various psychiatric drugs used for treatment of psychiatric nutritional disorders should also be kept in mind while anesthetizing such patients. A careful preoperative planning and optimization of general condition of these patients is mandatory to prevent any catastrophe. The importance of intense perioperative and postoperative monitoring cannot be underestimated in preventing any untoward incident during this period.