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The intragastric balloon (IGB), a non-invasive temporary method for obesity, can induce weight loss by placing a soft saline-or air-filled balloon in the stomach to reduce gastric capacity and delay gastric emptying. IGB is an option for individuals with obesity who have failed at weight management with diet and exercise or are unwilling to undergo bariatric surgery. Besides, IGB can also be used as a bridging intervention prior to bariatric surgery. IGB has been proven to be effective in inducing weight loss, with a low incidence of serious complications by clinical practice from foreign countries. However, the long-term follow-up for its effects on weight loss and metabolic improvement of IGB need to be verified in the future. The IGB has not been approved for clinical application in China. In this review, we discuss the indications and contraindications of IGB as well as its effects on weight loss and its complications.

The standardized nutrition support therapy can improve the nutritional status, immunity, quality of life, and clinical outcomes of patients with novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infection. The latest Chinese government policy also clearly states that nutrition support therapy should be included in the whole process of treatment and recovery of patients with COVID-19. Therefore, the Beijing Quality Control and Improvement Center for Clinical Nutrition Therapy has organized relevant experts to formulate the Recommendations of Nutritional Treatment for Patients with COVID-19 Infection (2023), following the latest clinical nutrition guidelines, research evidence and clinical practice of nutrition support of COVID-19. The recommendations suggest that individualized nutrition management be implemented by following the standardized pathway of nutrition management, which includes nutrition-risk screening, malnutrition diagnosis, nutrition treatment and nutrition monitoring, and by taking into account the clinical characteristics of patients with COVID-19.

Background and Objectives: Malnutrition in elderly individuals is extremely common. In China, Nutritional Risk Screening 2002 (NRS-2002) is often used to assess malnutrition in hospitalized elderly patients, although a gold standard for elderly outpatients is lacking. The Nutrition Screening Initiative Checklist (NSI) and Malnutrition Screening Tool (MST) have seldom been validated in elderly outpatients. This open, parallel, multi-center, cross-sectional study evaluated the performance of NRS-2002, the NSI, and the MST in estimating malnutrition risk in elderly outpatients.Methods and Study Design: This study included 986 elderly outpatients, with 53.2% being women, from five clinical teaching hospitals in Beijing. The sensitivity, specificity, and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of the tools were estimated using a body mass index (BMI) of <18.5 kg/m2 as a reference.Results: The mean (range) age of the patients was 69.6±6.8 (60-100) years. Overall, 4.3% had BMI <18.5 kg/m2, 16.8% scored ≥3 points in NRS-2002, 9.8% scored ≥2 points in the MST, and 37.0% scored ≥3 points in the NSI. NRS-2002 had the highest sensitivity and the best AUC (0.934 vs. 0.642 for the NSI and 0.660 for the MST, p<0.05), and the MST had the highest specificity. The sensitivity and specificity of the NSI were 0.64 and 0.64, respectively.Conclusions: NRS-2002 had the highest validity, and the MST had the highest specificity in estimating the risk of malnutrition in elderly outpatients. However, the accuracy of the NSI should be further verified with large samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives: Malnutrition in elderly individuals is extremely common. In China, Nutritional Risk Screening 2002 (NRS-2002) is often used to assess malnutrition in hospitalized elderly patients, although a gold standard for elderly outpatients is lacking. The Nutrition Screening Initiative Checklist (NSI) and Malnutrition Screening Tool (MST) have seldom been validated in elderly outpatients. This open, parallel, multi-center, cross-sectional study evaluated the performance of NRS-2002, the NSI, and the MST in estimating malnutrition risk in elderly outpatients., Methods and Study Design: This study included 986 elderly outpatients, with 53.2% being women, from five clinical teaching hospitals in Beijing. The sensitivity, specificity, and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of the tools were estimated using a body mass index (BMI) of <18.5 kg/m2 as a reference., Results: The mean (range) age of the patients was 69.6±6.8 (60-100) years. Overall, 4.3% had BMI <18.5 kg/m2, 16.8% scored ≥3 points in NRS-2002, 9.8% scored ≥2 points in the MST, and 37.0% scored ≥3 points in the NSI. NRS-2002 had the highest sensitivity and the best AUC (0.934 vs. 0.642 for the NSI and 0.660 for the MST, p<0.05), and the MST had the highest specificity. The sensitivity and specificity of the NSI were 0.64 and 0.64, respectively., Conclusions: NRS-2002 had the highest validity, and the MST had the highest specificity in estimating the risk of malnutrition in elderly outpatients. However, the accuracy of the NSI should be further verified with large samples.