Clinical determination of the nutritional status of companion animals

Abstract

A well-nourished animal is predisposed to good quality of life, health and high longevity. On the other hand, malnourished animals are predisposed to higher morbidity and mortality rates, recurrent hospitalizations, longer hospitalization times, and high health care expenditures. Malnutrition is associated with metabolic alterations and systemic dysfunctions, such as immunosuppression, impaired healing, and loss of weight due to reduced muscle and adipose mass, in addition to worsening skin and coat appearance. Nutritional assessment quantifies not only malnutrition and overweight but also how much these deviations would influence a patient's prognosis. In addition, the identification of malnourished animals allows the performance of specific nutritional treatments, with consequent clinical improvement. There are several techniques to evaluate nutritional status (NS) in dogs and cats; however, because they are individually limited, it is highly recommended to incorporate different methods before completing each case assessment. This literature review gathered information on the techniques of NS assessment during clinical examination, including anamnesis and physical examination. The importance of the manuscript is justified by the lack of nutritional semiology of small animals in the literature. In summary, there are useful markers of NS in companion animals: weight variation, the muscle mass score (MMS) and the body condition score (BCS). Additionally, the BCS, MMS and body mass index (BMI) assist in determining prognosis.