Impact of disease burden or inflammation on nutritional assessment by the GLIM criteria in female patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Background & aims: In 2018, the Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM) released a global standard for evaluating malnutrition. The etiologies of malnutrition in the GLIM criteria includes disease burden/inflammation, but how this view affects nutritional assessment remains unclear. This study aimed to investigate the impact of disease burden/inflammation on the proportion of malnourished patients defined by GLIM criteria, and how differences in methods for determining disease burden/inflammation in GLIM criteria affect existing nutritional indices among patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). We also investigated factors associated with malnutrition in RA patients.

Methods: Data from 135 female RA patients (66.8 ± 12.6 years) were cross-sectionally analyzed. Among the etiologies of malnutrition, disease burden/inflammation was defined as: (1) moderate or higher disease activity score (disease activity score composite of the 28-joint score and erythrocyte sedimentation rate [DAS28-ESR] ≥ 3.2) [DAS-malnutrition (MN)]; (2) elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) ≥0.5 mg/dL (CRP-MN); and (3) presence of RA (RA-MN). In each of the three conditions, nutritional indicators between well-nourished and malnourished groups were compared by analysis of covariance. Factors associated with malnutrition were analyzed with logistic regression analysis.

Results: The frequencies of malnutrition as defined by DAS-MN, CRP-MN, and RA-MN were 39%, 30%, and 71%, respectively. When malnutrition was defined by the DAS-MN and/or the CRP-MN, grip strength and serum ceruloplasmin, iron, and zinc levels showed significant differences between the well-nourished and malnourished groups (p < 0.05). The use of targeted synthetic or biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (ts-/b-DMARD) (OR = 0.29; 95% CI 0.11-0.82), grip strength (OR = 0.83; 95% CI 0.75-0.91), subjective reduction in walking speed (OR = 5.24; 1.85-14.86) were significantly associated with malnutrition as determined by DAS-MN.

Conclusion: Differences in disease burden/inflammation affect nutritional assessments. The number of malnourished patients with RA was negatively associated with the use of ts-/b-DMARDs and high physical function in women.