[Nutritional investigations and dietetic note-book. An instrument to establish the diet of hyperlipidemic patients (author's transl)].

Whenever an excess of blood lipoids is revealed by laboratory tests, investigations should be conducted along two lines: etiological, aimed at detecting an underlying disease amenable to treatment, and dietetic, aimed at determining the patient's calorie intake. In every case, dietetic measures should begin with a normal-lipid, alcohol-free diet providing a number of calories adapted to the patient's weight. Calorie restriction is achieved at the expense of carbohydrates. This adaptation phase usually lasts 2 months. It is made easier by dietetic note-books where the amounts of each food are expressed as parts containing either 10 g of lipids or 10 g of glucides, and where fats are divided into predominantly saturated and unsaturated and glucides into slowly and rapidly absorbed. The problem of adapting the diet to the various types of hyperlipaemias is discussed. In most cases serum lipoprotein levels return to normal after 2 months of adequate diet, but it is essential to reeducate the patients in their eating habits, since successful re-education may help to reduce cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.