[Nutrition and infection].

Undernutrition leads to a global immune deficiency. What is the influence of undernutrition on the occurence and development of an infectious disease? How does an infection act on nutritional state of a patient? Is it possible to improve nutritional state by treating an infection and inversely, is it possible to prevent the arrival of an infectious disease by improving nutritional state? This article summarizes answers to these questions and takes up the subject of infectious complications related to nutritional treatment and parenteral nutrition in particular. Some exemples of pharmaconutrition are also mentioned.