Helen Milroy, Advanced Paediatric Dietitian at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, talks about Cystic Fibrosis and Diabetes.
Cystic fibrosis is an inherited condition causing sticky mucus to build up in the lungs and digestive system children with cystic fibrosis have frequent chest infections and often need admissions to hospitals for iv antibiotics and intensive physiotherapy sessions these admissions usually last between one and three weeks and some children with cf need to be
Admitted for iv antibiotics every three months these children are very unwell they are on multiple medications many of these affect their appetite added to this they have extremely high calorie requirements as their bodies are fighting infection these frequent admissions as you can imagine are very disruptive to their day-to-day life and routine most children with
Cystic fibrosis have difficulty digesting food and need to take pancreatic enzymes called creon with everything that they eat and drink and with milky drinks the amount of creon they did depends on what they are actually going to eat and the amount of fat in the food if they don’t take enough crayon they won’t be able to absorb the nutrients in the food i will have
Symptoms such as abdominal pain wind and quite explosive diarrhoea and all the nourishment from the food will literally go down the toilet as a dietitian my role is to make sure these children are getting the nutrition they need to promote their recovery and to achieve the weight gain that they need as well as making sure that they take the right amount of enzymes
Based on what they’re eating and drinking these children need to have meals and snacks that are varied and nutritious as well as being appetizing the meals and snacks need to be high in energy so these children can get the extra calories they need to fight infection and these foods might not always be thought of as healthy eating the menu needs to be sufficiently
Varied to avoid monotony associated with frequent lengthy admissions in addition to varied meals that are freshly cooked on site these children need to have access to a wide range of high energy snacks to enable them to meet their extremely high energy requirements they also need to have a good supply of healthy snacks including fresh fruit and vegetables to
Make sure their gut works properly meals need to be cooked to a standard that allows the dietitian the child and their parents to be able to calculate how much crayon they need to take with these food with these meals and that will be based on the fat content of the meal now for children with diabetes in adam brooks we care for children with different types of
Diabetes but mainly type 1 diabetes and this is a chronic condition in which the pancreas produces little or no insulin and therefore the insulin must be replaced the insulin is required for utilizing carbohydrates to make energy from the food that we ate because this of this carbic carbohydrate counting is a very important part of diabetes treatment there’s no
Special diet for children with type 1 diabetes but a balanced healthy varied diet is recommended and it’s important that the low carbohydrate snacks are available for children on the ward as well as what they call low glycemic low-glycemic glycemic index carbohydrate sources in order to work out the insulin dose for each meal and snack the nutrition information
Of the carbohydrate content must be provided as well as the portion size of the carbohydrate source and also the need to have access to food weighing scales as insulin must be injected prior to the intake it’s important to have this information available to patients and parents before meals and snacks are given to the patient
Transcribed from video
Food, with Care: Cystic Fibrosis and Diabetes By Cambridge Children’s Hospital
