Ready to Use Therapeutic Foods

The first five years of life are a time of major development, growth, and weight gain for children. If a child has lasting improper intake it can lead to many short term and long term complications later in life. In the short-term malnourished children have growth and immune complications, and in the longer term are more likely to more growth and cognitive complications. In 2012, 162 million children under 5 years of age were stunted, 56% of all stunted children lived in Asia and 36% in Africa. 99 million children under five years of age were underweight, 51 million children were wasted, and 17 million were classified as severely wasted. These conditions can lead to some severe nutritional diseases and issues, including acute malnutrition.

Acute malnutrition is caused by decreased food consumption and/or illness that cause sudden weight loss or edema. Checking for signs of underweight, stunting, or wasting diagnoses acute malnutrition. There are three common types of malnutrition: marasmus, kwashiorhor, and marasmic-kwashiorkor.

• Marasmus: is the most common form of acute malnutrition in nutritional emergencies and in its severe form, can very quickly lead to death if untreated. It is characterized by severe wasting of fat and muscle which the body breaks down to make energy. Wasting can affect both children and adults. The body of a wasted child tries to conserve as more energy as possible by reducing activity and growth, and limiting body processes. Can be moderate or severe cases.
• Kwashiorkor: characterized by bilateral pitting oedema in the lower legs and feet which as it progresses becomes more generalized to the arms, hands, and face. All cases of kwashiorkor are classified as severe acute malnutrition. Clinical signs of kwashiorkor include loss of appetite, apathy/irritability, changes in hair color (yellow/orange), and dermatosis
• Marasmic-Kwashiorkor: characterized by the presence of both wasting and bilateral pitting oedema.

Today undernutrition is still a leading cause of death of young children throughout the world. For infants and children under the age of two, the consequences of undernutrition are particularly severe, often irreversible, and reach far into the future. However evidence shows that the right nutrition during the first 1,000 days or 2 years of life can save more than one million lives each year, reduce the human and economic burden of tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV/AIDS, reduce risk of developing non-communicable diseases, improve individuals educational achievement and earning potential, and increase countries GDP.

            So how dowe make this happen? Ensure that mothers and the young get necessary vitamins and minerals, promote good nutrition practices, and treating malnourished and under-nourished children with ready-to-use therapeutic foods (RUTF). 

So what is a ready-to-useTherapeutic food? RUFT’s are high-energy, lipid-based spreads used in any cultural setting for the treatment of severe acute malnutrition. Designed to provide the same nutritional profile as F100 therapeutic milk. RUFT may be the sole source of food, except water and/or breast milk during period of use. They have a shelf-life of two years and delivers 520 to 550 calories per 100 grams of product. Therapeutic foods are usually have a long shelf-stability, do not need to be mixed with water, heat, or kept cold or hot. These foods also can be kept “fresh” or safe longer.

Nutriset, a French company, founded by Michel Lescanne, was the first company to develop Ready to Use Therapeutic Foods; which is now the gold standard for treatment of malnutrition and have been endorsed by all international nutrition leaders. Lescanne goal was to invent, produce and make accessible solutions for the treatment and prevention of malnutrition, thereby contributing to the nutritional autonomy of developing countries. In 1996, Nutriset revolutionized the management of severe acute malnutrition (SAM) around the world by developing Plumpy’Nut®, the first ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) which made it possible for children and adults with SAM to receive home-based, medically supervised treatment instead of being treated in a hospital setting. This made it possible to increase the number of children receiving treatment and has significantly improved the recovery rate. With was revolutionary because this was the first product created for the treatment of malnutrition without constraints of needing clean water, refrigeration, and in-patient medical supervision.