Malnutrition in African Adults

Abstract

In 1948, we had occasion to undertake a series of nitrogen-balance experiments on African patients in Mulago hospital, with a view to assessing their state of nutrition with respect to protein. Some had been admitted to hospital suffering from severe hookworm anaemia, others with enlargement of the liver and spleen sufficient to bring them into hospital. Others bore the diagnosis simply of 'malnutrition'. They all gave a history, extending over years, of a diet grossly deficient in protein, and from which animal protein was almost absent. Malnutrition of the type encountered here differs from that seen in Europe and America in that very serious protein deficiency may accompany a diet of reasonable calorie value. Bayliss's dictum 'Take care of the calories, and the protein will take care of itself' is emphatically not true in this part of Africa. This is because the common carbohydrate staples, sweet potato, cassava, and plantain contain z % or less of protein.