Tuberculosis, or TB, is a very serious infectious disease that attacks the lungs. It is still a major cause of illness and death in the world, killing about 2 million people every year. TB can be cured by taking many medications over a few months, but it is very important for you to optimize your nutritional status to prevent any complications related to the rapid weight loss associated with the accompanying illness or malnutrition.
Symptoms
Tuberculosis can be active or latent. Signs and symptoms of active tuberculosis include unexplained rapid weight loss, fatigue and weakness, fever, night sweats, chills and loss of appetite. Other symptoms include coughing that persists for 3 or more weeks, shortness of breath and chest pain.
Complications
Without treatment, TB can result in the death of a patient because an untreated infection may not only affect your lungs, but also travel through the blood stream to affect other parts of your body. This results in serious complications like permanent lung damage, severe pain, abscesses and joint destruction, and meningitis, which occurs when TB affects the brain and nerves. In severe cases, the infection might become "military TB," which affects your entire body. It is very important, thus, to maintain adequate nutrition status so that you can help your body fight off the infection.
Tips for Adding Calories
There are some mealtime changes you can try to help increase your daily caloric intake. Try to always have proteins, such as meats, poultry, fish, eggs, nuts and beans with every meal so that you can make sure your are getting enough protein. Also, try to eat more meals throughout the day by eating healthy snacks between every meal. Another thing you can try is to have beverages that have calories like fruit juices, milkshakes or a nutritional supplement instead of water during you meals and between meals. Finally, you can add calories to low calorie foods like fruits and vegetables by adding peanut butter or creams and sugar to fruits, and oil or butter to vegetables.
Foods to Avoid
If you have TB, you need to maintain optimal nutritional status in order to help your body health and prevent any further complications. So you really need to only eat foods that have nutrients, calories and protein in them. For this reason, you should avoid foods that are "diet" or "light," which usually have little to no nutritional value and a very low calorie count.
