Nutrition, immunity and infections: T lymphocyte subpopulations in protein--energy malnutrition.

Protein energy malnutrition (PEM) is one of the most frequent causes of secondary immune deficiency states. Alterations either in cellular or humoral immune mechanisms increase the susceptibility to infections in the malnourished organism. Infections aggravate the interrelationship of malnutrition to immune deficiency and infections, resulting in future adverse effects of malnutrition on humoral and cellular immune systems, IgG, IgM, IgA, C3, and T lymphocyte subpopulations were identified in 29 patients with PEM and 15 healthy infants serving as the control group, ranging between 3 and 24 months of age. Patients with PEM demonstrated elevated levels of IgG, IgM and IgA when compared to the control group (P < 0.01, P < 0.01, P < 0.01), C3 levels were significantly lower than the values of the control group (P < 0.01).