Question

Passage: A one and a half year old girl, fed mostly on dilute cow's milk, develops diarrhea that persists for 10 days. This is followed by swelling on her feet, and the likely diagnosis is Kwashiorkor.

One life-threatening complication of this condition is

• A. Hyperkalemia
• B. Hypernatremia
• C. Metabolic acidosis
• D. Hypoglycaemia

Hint:

Think about what 10 days of diarrhea does to the body's bicarbonate and acid base balance.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is C

Step 1: Understanding the Question.
This child has Kwashiorkor along with 10 days of diarrhea. We need the life threatening complication that fits this picture best.

Step 2: Key Concept.
Severe malnutrition badly weakens a child's ability to keep the internal environment stable. Long diarrhea causes major loss of bicarbonate rich fluid from the gut, and a malnourished body cannot buffer or compensate for this loss well. The combination of ongoing bicarbonate loss through the stool and a poor compensatory reserve pushes the child into metabolic acidosis, which is one of the recognized dangerous complications that guides such as the WHO protocol for severe malnutrition specifically watch for.

Step 3: Detailed Explanation.
Option (A), hyperkalemia, does not fit. Diarrhea and poor intake in malnourished children more often cause potassium loss and low potassium levels, not high potassium.
Option (B), hypernatremia, also does not fit well. Diarrhea usually causes loss of both water and sodium, and severely malnourished children more often run low or normal sodium rather than high sodium.
Option (C), metabolic acidosis, fits directly. Ten days of diarrhea causes heavy bicarbonate loss in the stool, and the malnourished state limits the body's ability to correct the resulting acid buildup.
Option (D), hypoglycaemia, is also a known danger in severe malnutrition because glycogen stores are depleted, but the specific combination of prolonged diarrhea driving bicarbonate loss in this child points most directly to metabolic acidosis as the answer being tested here.

Step 4: Final Answer.
The prolonged diarrhea plus the malnourished state together produce a dangerous metabolic acidosis. \[ \boxed{\text{Metabolic acidosis}} \]