Prolonged corticosteroid therapy and diet

In order to prevent adverse effects of long lasting treatments by glucocorticoids, some dietetic measures are underlined. If one was to strictly follow all these recommendations i.e., no salt, little glucose intake, high level of proteins, low calories diet, sufficient potassium intake and supplementation with calcium and vitamin D3, it would hardly be possible. The most common practice from doctors and patients is a salt-less diet, followed by calcium and vitamin D supplementation. Literature analysis on the opportunity of all these dietetic measures is surprisingly very poor, knowing that these drugs have been on the market for over fifty years. Only because osteoporosis has been on the front of the scene those past years a little more is known about calcium and vitamin D. It seems there are plenty opportunities on more studies on the subject. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Masson SAS on behalf of the Societe nationale francaise de medecine interne (SNFMI).