Alimentación en diarrea aguda

Dehydration and malnutrition are the main complications of diarrhea; nutritional damages of acute diarrhea are produced by lost of nutrients, increased nutritional requirement and loss of appetite. Maintenance of feeding, during an acute diarrhea episode, reduces its evolution and improves hydration and nutrition of the patients through intestinal absorption stimulation. Therefore it is strongly recommended to continue with the habitual diet, including breast milk feeding, and to increase the frequency of meals; introducing new foods is not recommended. There are not scientific evidence supporting that, in an acute diarrhea episode, milk should be diluted or that lactose-free infants formulas should be used except in those rare cases of lactose intolerance. If the previous concepts are followed, children with acute diarrhea will have a favorable evolution without nutritional impairment.