Nutrient intake and nutritional status in alcoholics.

The modern techniques used in making reliable nutritional surveys and in assessing the nutritional status of alcoholic individuals have greatly improved our possibilities to determine the nutrient intake and to detect nutritional deficiencies in alcoholics from different social groups. In earlier studies, the rather high incidence of malnutrition in alcoholics can be related to the patients consisting of indigent, skid row alcoholics or patients with severe somatic complications. Later studies have revealed that nutritional deficiencies are rare among middle-class alcoholics without significant somatic complications. However, selective nutritional deficiencies may be found among lower-income and homeless alcoholic populations.