Nutrition and immunity in cystic fibrosis.

Has too much attention been focused on antibiotic therapy in cystic fibrosis, 
thereby overshadowing other measures which have led to the improved prognosis? 
This may well be true and there is no doubt that 
regular intensive physiotherapy, performed daily by the patients' relatives, plays the 
major part in improving airway obstruction. More skilful nutritional management including 
adequate pancreatic replacement therapy and high-energy, high-protein diets will also have 
had beneficial effects on the respiratory defects. The infected CF patient 
may not require high doses of antibiotics; he too might benefit 
more from simple nutritional alterations. It is not new to suggest 
that nutritional factors are important influences on the resistance to infection 
of the CF patient. What we can now do is measure 
the different aspects of the immune response in such patients and 
those with malnutrition, so that the simplest and most direct therapy 
can be chosen. 