Another, but very important, group are mental health conditions

Disorders from the affective spectrum, such as depression or bipolar disorder, can significantly affect the desire to take food. The depressed patient has great difficulty initiating activities, even basic ones to satisfy basic physiological needs. There is a decline in social activities but also in basic, everyday activities. Depressed people, as a result of deficiencies in biogenic amines such as serotonin and norepinephrine, which are involved in important neurochemical processes, may present with a decrease in appetite and consequent weight loss. In addition, their motivation to take care of basic vital functions such as nutrition decreases. Anxiety disorders also often present with eating disorders, which manifest themselves as a reluctance to eat. An illness from the circle of psychiatric disorders strongly related to eating is anorexia nervosa. In this entity, the patient experiences a strong fear of gaining weight or becoming obese, even when objectively normal in weight and appearance. The underlying cause of this illness is believed to be, as in depression, a deficiency of serotonin and noradrenaline.

photo: panthermedia

Gastrointestinal disorders are also a common cause of weight loss. Malabsorption disorders come to the fore in this group. Inflammatory bowel diseases often lead to mucosal damage, resulting in an inability to absorb nutrients. These diseases include Crohn's disease, the essence of which is chronic inflammation within the mucosa, most commonly the small intestine, but the disease process can involve any section of the gastrointestinal tract. A similar condition is colicis ulcerosa, or ulcerative colitis, in which inflammation occurs in the colon and rectal area. The main symptoms are chronic diarrhoea and abdominal pain. Due to prolonged diarrhoea, weight loss occurs. Weight loss can also be caused by food intolerances such as coeliac disease, which is characterised by inflammation of the intestinal mucosa, but in this case in response to an allergen such as gluten.

Weight loss and cancer

The last, but seemingly most serious group of diseases that strongly affect nutritional status and body weight, are cancer diseases. In their case, rapid weight loss over a short period of time may be a symptom of the development of a proliferative process. With rapid tumour growth, the energy of the host (human) is used up and it is not able to compensate for such a large loss. On the other hand, in the case of tumours located in the upper sections of the gastrointestinal tract (tongue cancer, pharyngeal cancer, laryngeal cancer, oesophageal cancer), difficulties in ingesting food, swallowing In situations where the tumour develops in the lower section of the gastrointestinal tract (colon cancer, rectal cancer, abdominal metastases), obstruction or impaired absorption of nutrients may occur. An extreme situation in the course of long-term cancer is cachexia syndrome. This is characterised by hypermetabolism of fats, sugars and proteins, as well as elevated levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines and loss of muscle tissue.