App addresses nutrition needs of TB patients
It’s a measure of the time technology takes that now, finally, an app exists to address the wasting that gave tuberculosis its original name — consumption. Leading to malnutrition, serious side effects from drugs or failure to absorb medicines, the serious weight loss that can characterize the disease raises risks of death or recurrence of sickness after cure, and, diminishing patients’ ability to work, adds to the catastrophic personal and financial fallout from illness.
In time for World TB Day researchers from McGill University’s International TB Centre with researchers from the Center for Nutrition Studies at Yenepoya University of Mangalore are unveiling an app to help enable the nutritional assessment, counseling and support recommended by the World Health Organization as an integral part of TB care. The N-TB app, endorsed by India’s National Tuberculosis Control Programme as well as by WHO India, calculates body mass index, red-flags those that are dangerously low, and sets out a response, providing weight gain and nutrition guidelines with recommended daily caloric and protein from locally available foods.
It is, of course, free, and is available here.
Source: Science Speaks
