Nutritional therapy and infectious diseases: a two-edged sword

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Abstract

The benefits and risks of nutritional therapies in the prevention and management of infectious diseases in the developed world are reviewed. There is strong evidence that early enteral feeding of patients prevents infections in a variety of traumatic and surgical illnesses. There is, however, little support for similar early feeding in medical illnesses. Parenteral nutrition increases the risk of infection when compared to enteral feeding or delayed nutrition. The use of gastric feedings appears to be as safe and effective as small bowel feedings. Dietary supplementation with glutamine appears to lower the risk of post-surgical infections and the ingestion of cranberry products has value in preventing urinary tract infections in women.

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Perioperative total parenteral nutrition in surgical patients. The Veterans Affairs Total Parenteral Nutrition Cooperative Study Group.

G. Buzby (1991)

We undertook this study to test the hypothesis that perioperative total parenteral nutrition (TPN) decreases the incidence of serious complications after major abdominal or thoracic surgical procedures in malnourished patients. We studied 395 malnourished patients (99 percent of them male) who required laparotomy or noncardiac thoracotomy. They were randomly assigned to receive either TPN for 7 to 15 days before surgery and 3 days afterward (the TPN group) or no perioperative TPN (the control group). The patients were monitored for complications for 90 days after surgery. The rates of major complications during the first 30 days after surgery in the two groups were similar (TPN group, 25.5 percent; control group, 24.6 percent), as were the overall 90-day mortality rates (13.4 percent and 10.5 percent, respectively). There were more infectious complications in the TPN group than in the controls (14.1 vs. 6.4 percent; P = 0.01; relative risk, 2.20; 95 percent confidence interval, 1.19 to 4.05), but slightly more noninfectious complications in the control group (16.7 vs. 22.2 percent; P = 0.20; relative risk, 0.75; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.50 to 1.13). The increased rate of infections was confined to patients categorized as either borderline or mildly malnourished, according to Subjective Global Assessment or an objective nutritional assessment, and these patients had no demonstrable benefit from TPN. In contrast, severely malnourished patients who received TPN had fewer noninfectious complications than controls (5 vs. 43 percent; P = 0.03; relative risk, 0.12; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.02 to 0.91), with no concomitant increase in infectious complications. The use of preoperative TPN should be limited to patients who are severely malnourished unless there are other specific indications.

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Early enteral feeding, compared with parenteral, reduces postoperative septic complications. The results of a meta-analysis.

Sophie E. Moore, Richard J. Andrassy, Samantha F. Moore … (1992)

This two-part meta-analysis combined data from eight prospective randomized trials designed to compare the nutritional efficacy of early enteral (TEN) and parenteral (TPN) nutrition in high-risk surgical patients. The combined data gave sufficient patient numbers (TEN, n = 118; TPN, n = 112) to adequately address whether route of substrate delivery affected septic complication incidence. Phase I (dropouts excluded) meta-analysis confirmed data homogeneity across study sites, that TEN and TPN groups were comparable, and that significantly fewer TEN patients experienced septic complications (TEN, 18%; TPN, 35%; p = 0.01). Phase II meta-analysis, an intent-to-treat analysis (dropouts included), confirmed that fewer TEN patients developed septic complications. Further breakdown by patient type showed that all trauma and blunt trauma subgroups had the most significant reduction in septic complications when fed enterally. In conclusion, this meta-analysis attests to the feasibility of early postoperative TEN in high-risk surgical patients and that these patients have reduced septic morbidity rates compared with those administered TPN.

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Early enteral feeding versus "nil by mouth" after gastrointestinal surgery: systematic review and meta-analysis of controlled trials.

S. W. Lewis, Steven P. Sylvester, Jos I. M. Egger … (2001)

To determine whether a period of starvation (nil by mouth) after gastrointestinal surgery is beneficial in terms of specific outcomes. Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials comparing any type of enteral feeding started within 24 hours after surgery with nil by mouth management in elective gastrointestinal surgery. Three electronic databases (PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane controlled trials register) were searched, reference lists checked, and letters requesting details of unpublished trials and data sent to pharmaceutical companies and authors of previous trials. Anastomotic dehiscence, infection of any type, wound infection, pneumonia, intra-abdominal abscess, length of hospital stay, and mortality. Eleven studies with 837 patients met the inclusion criteria. In six studies patients in the intervention group were fed directly into the small bowel and in five studies patients were fed orally. Early feeding reduced the risk of any type of infection (relative risk 0.72, 95% confidence interval 0.54 to 0.98, P=0.036) and the mean length of stay in hospital (number of days reduced by 0.84, 0.36 to 1.33, P=0.001). Risk reductions were also seen for anastomotic dehiscence (0.53, 0.26 to 1.08, P=0.080), wound infection, pneumonia, intra-abdominal abscess, and mortality, but these failed to reach significance (P>0.10). The risk of vomiting was increased among patients fed early (1.27, 1.01 to 1.61, P=0.046). There seems to be no clear advantage to keeping patients nil by mouth after elective gastrointestinal resection. Early feeding may be of benefit. An adequately powered trial is required to confirm or refute the benefits seen in small trials.

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Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Nutr J

Title: Nutrition Journal

Publisher: BioMed Central (London )

ISSN (Electronic): 1475-2891

Publication date Collection: 2006

Publication date (Electronic): 4 September 2006

Volume: 5

Page: 21

Affiliations

[1 ]Professor of Medicine, College of Medicine, University of Toledo, 3120 Glendale Avenue, Toledo, OH 43614, USA

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Publisher ID: 1475-2891-5-21

DOI: 10.1186/1475-2891-5-21

PMC ID: 1570358

PubMed ID: 16952310

SO-VID: 8e469573-8e01-4be5-821d-13dec33a3a18

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This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Nutritional therapy and infectious diseases: a two-edged sword

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Karger: Nutrition and Dietetics

Most cited references 74

Perioperative total parenteral nutrition in surgical patients. The Veterans Affairs Total Parenteral Nutrition Cooperative Study Group.

Early enteral feeding, compared with parenteral, reduces postoperative septic complications. The results of a meta-analysis.

Early enteral feeding versus "nil by mouth" after gastrointestinal surgery: systematic review and meta-analysis of controlled trials.

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