Nutritional support in sepsis: when less may be more

Abstract Despite sound basis to suspect that aggressive and early administration of nutritional support may hold therapeutic benefits during sepsis, recommendations for nutritional support have been somewhat underwhelming. Current guidelines (ESPEN and ASPEN) recognise a lack of clear evidence demon...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Gustav van Niekerk, Charné Meaker, Anna-Mart Engelbrecht
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: BMC 2020-02-01
Series:Critical Care
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1186/s13054-020-2771-4
Description
Summary:Abstract Despite sound basis to suspect that aggressive and early administration of nutritional support may hold therapeutic benefits during sepsis, recommendations for nutritional support have been somewhat underwhelming. Current guidelines (ESPEN and ASPEN) recognise a lack of clear evidence demonstrating the beneficial effect of nutritional support during sepsis, raising the question: why, given the perceived low efficacy of nutritionals support, are there no high-quality clinical trials on the efficacy of permissive underfeeding in sepsis? Here, we review clinically relevant beneficial effects of permissive underfeeding, motivating the urgent need to investigate the clinical benefits of delaying nutritional support during sepsis.
ISSN:1364-8535