Jerry's Heroin Addiction Paper

Jerry is a thirty-five year old jewish, homeless, heroin addict. Because of his life style and disabilities, Jerry is at risk for several nutritional deficiencies. Because Jerry has a heroin addiction, he is at risk for anorexia nervosa from not eating enough or spending money on drugs rather than nutritious food. He is also at risk for HIV/AIDs, and bacterial and viral infections from the sharing of needles which could lead to being too sick to eat, vomiting, diarrhea, and dehydration. All factors leaving Jerry malnourished. According to the article, “Nutritional assessment of drugs” 92.4% weighed under the mean weight of the populations, and 55.7% had weight loss above 5%. Being a heroin addict, Jerry could be more worried about where he’s getting his drugs from rather than his food.

Another life style choice that factors in to possible nutritional

He doesn’t have the ability to buy and make food whenever he’d like which may restrict good nutrition. In this scenario, He is receiving food from the local soup kitchen. According to the article, “Food insufficiency and health services utilization in a national sample of homeless adults” show that nearly half of the homeless population is suffering from overall food insufficiency and malnutrition. Jerry is at risk for overall vitamin and mineral deficiencies because the lack of food. He is also at risk for anorexia nervosa because of the lack of food, cholera from possible contaminated water from streams, rivers, resting water, and other possible sources of drinking water, possibly Kwashiorkor because of sufficient calorie intake but insufficient protein consumption, and bacterial/viral diseases from rotten or diseased food that was scavenged for. In this specific scenario, Jerry and his fellow homeless friends have contracted food poisoning from the food at the soup