Rafael Barrera, MD, Director of the Surgical Intensive Care Unit at Long Island Jewish (LIJ) Medical Center in New York, offers suggestions for reducing complication rates in patients by cracking down on malnutrition. He preaches early aggressive nutrition to avoid the problems that malnutrition brings. It is important to identify those at high risk of malnutrition early in their hospital stay. As far as nutrition choice, Dr. Barrera suggests using perenteral in combination with enteral nutrition to optimize patient nutrition.

Reading:

Parish A, Bhatia J. Early aggressive nutrition for the premature infant. Neonatology. 2008;94(3):211-4. Epub 2008 Oct 2.

Adamkin DH. Early aggressive nutrition: parenteral amino acids and minimal enteral nutrition for extremely low birth weight (<1 000 g) infants. Minerva Pediatr. 2007 Aug;59(4):369-77.

Denne SC, Poindexter BB. Evidence supporting early nutritional support with parenteral amino acid infusion. Semin Perinatol. 2007 Apr;31(2):56-60.

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