This is my synthesized opinion

First CONTEXT MATTERS.  So if you are in an acute famine, treatment is more effective and death comes more quickly without treatment.  When you are in an environment with consistent high inflammation from acute infections with intermittent  improvement in the food security ( improvements NOT from treatment/ feeding), this ameliorates bad outcomes.  The latter circumstance is under appreciated as it is not a 'disaster' and the expectations of the international community are that food should just fix this type of acute malnutrition.  Many would argue this is not acute.

For SAM I would say 50% die before 3mo and 10% seem to survive for years.

For MAM, I just completed a new study on the natural history of MAM without feeding, and instead of dying, a poor outcome is much more likely to be SAM.  35% will develop SAM by 6mo and sponteneous recovery will be seem in 35%.  So I would say that after 4 mo half of MAM children 'declare themselves' for better or worse.

What type of context do you work in?

Hi Anonymous,

You may find the following paper by Isanaka et al. interesting reading,

https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/173/8/932/156688

Echoing what Mark has already said the authors state:

"The duration of untreated episodes of acute malnutrition will probably vary geographically and temporally depending on a number of contextual factors, such as the severity and type of malnutrition (kwashiorkor vs. marasmus), the prevalence of infectious illness, access to health services, and the age structure of the population. As a result, a single estimate of average duration is not likely to apply to all settings."

Also see:

https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/48/052/48052564.pdf

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/269290008.pdf

I hope this helps,

Paul

Dear Mark,

Many thanks for sharing on this. Is this recent study you're refering to available? I would be very interested to learn more on these interesting findings.

Many thanks,

Cecile.