Novel approaches in an integrated therapy of inflammatory-associated wasting in end-stage renal disease

It is increasingly apparent that end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients carry an inflammatory burden, which may play a pivotal role in the evolution of not only wasting, but also the massive increase in the relative risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Thus wasting is strongly associated with a persistent systemic inflammatory response, CVD, and impaired patient survival in end-stage renal disease (ESRD), as well as in other chronic diseases. Evidence suggests that a facilitative interaction between inflammatory cytokines and other factors such as poor appetite, comorbidity, acidosis, anemia, and hormonal derangements may cause wasting in this patient group. Clearly, isolated interventions in the form of nutritional energy and protein supplementation have seldom proven to be very effective in improving nutritional status and outcome in ESRD patients, presumably because of the need to attack other causative factors. Therefore, new treatment strategies must be evaluated. Strategies such as multiple appetite stimulants, various "anti-inflammatory diets," and new potentially useful anti-inflammatory pharmacologic agents may be tested alone, or in combination, to evaluate if these new therapeutic modalities can improve the outcome of ESRD patients. As the etiology of wasting in ESRD is multifactorial, we propose that its treatment must include not one, but a number of concomitant measures to provide an integrated therapy against this devastating complication.