ReviewCritical care (London, England)2017
The role of nutritional support in the physical and functional recovery of critically ill patients: a narrative review.
Review in Critical care (London, England), 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 35 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
35 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The Effects of Protein Nutrition on Muscle Function in Critical Illness: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Nutrients · 2025Pooled it
- Reporting of nutritional screening, status, and intake in trials of nutritional and physical rehabilitation following critical illness: a systematic review.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2025Pooled it
- Trial
- Exploration of muscle loss and metabolic state during prolonged critical illness: Implications for intervention?PloS one · 2019Trial
- Nutritional Management in Intensive Care: From Nutritional Support to Personalized Nutritional Therapy.Nutrients · 2026Article
- Article
- Opportunities to Improve Nutrition for Patients in Hospital After Discharge From an Intensive Care Unit: A Human Factors Analysis.Nursing in critical care · 2026Article
- Sepsis in multimorbidity: a domain-based framework for systemic vulnerability and precision care.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Review
- Precision nutrition in critical illness: a phase-specific framework from acute feeding to post-ICU recovery.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Review
- Energy Requirements in the Post-ICU Period: An Exploratory Multicenter Observational Study.Nutrients · 2025Observational
- A New Perspective on Overfeeding in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU): Challenges, Dangers and Prevention Methods.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Factors influencing short-term and long-term survival rates in stroke patients receiving enteral nutrition: a machine learning approach using MIMIC-IV database.BMC neurology · 2025Article
- Novel Strategies to Promote Intensive Care Unit Recovery via Personalized Exercise, Nutrition, and Anabolic Interventions.Critical care clinics · 2025Review
- Comprehensive Review of Sepsis-Related Skeletal Muscle Atrophy: Mechanisms, Diagnosis and Therapeutic Strategies.Journal of inflammation research · 2025Review
- Review
- Inflammation and altered metabolism impede efficacy of functional electrical stimulation in critically ill patients.Critical care (London, England) · 2023Article
- Nutrition in the intensive care unit and early recovery influence functional outcomes for survivors of critical illness: A prospective cohort study.JPEN. Journal of parenteral and enteral nutrition · 2023Article
- Personalized nutrition therapy in critical care: 10 expert recommendations.Critical care (London, England) · 2023Review
- Nutritional status of patients with COVID-19 1-y post-ICU stay: A prospective observational study.Nutrition (Burbank, Los Angeles County, Calif.) · 2023Observational
- Post Hospital Discharge Functional Recovery of Critical Illness Survivors. Systematic Review.Journal of critical care medicine (Universitatea de Medicina si Farmacie din Targu-Mures) · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The lack of benefit from randomised controlled trials has resulted in significant controversy regarding the role of nutrition during critical illness in terms of long-term recovery and outcome. Although methodological caveats with a failure to adequately appreciate biological mechanisms may explain these disappointing results, it must be acknowledged that nutritional support during early critical illness, when considered alone, may have limited long-term functional impact.This narrative review focuses specifically on recent clinical trials and evaluates the impact of nutrition during critical illness on long-term physical and functional recovery.Specific focus on the trial design and methodological limitations has been considered in detail. Limitations include delivery of caloric and protein targets, patient heterogeneity, short duration of intervention, inappropriate clinical outcomes and a disregard for baseline nutritional status and nutritional intake in the post-ICU period.With survivorship at the forefront of critical care research, it is imperative that nutrition studies carefully consider biological mechanisms and trial design because these factors can strongly influence outcomes, in particular long-term physical and functional outcome. Failure to do so may lead to inconclusive clinical trials and consequent rejection of the potentially beneficial effects of nutrition interventions during critical illness.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.