Muscles of intensive care patients are less able to use fats for energy, contributing to extensive muscle mass loss, according to a new study.
Fats typically make up nearly half the energy content of tube feeds for critically ill patients, and the research, supported by our BRC, helps explain why nutrition programmes designed to prevent muscle loss have largely been unsuccessful.
It is already known that intensive care patients struggle to use glucose for energy.
The study researchers from UCL, King’s College London and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, suggest the inability to generate energy is likely a result of the widespread muscle inflammation experienced by patients in the early days of intensive care.
Intensive care patients can lose 20% of their muscle mass in just 10 days, which can contribute to long-term disability.
Lead author Dr Zudin Puthucheary from UCL said:
‘Exercise and rehabilitation in this group is going to be difficult if our patients’ muscles lack energy to work and grow. Our patients may need a coordinated nutrition and exercise regime to recover just like athletes do. This needs to be put in place once the muscle inflammation has subsided.’
Research will now look at whether other energy sources, such as ketones, could be used more effectively by the muscles of patients in intensive care.
Professor Hugh Montgomery, senior co-author from UCL, said:
‘By providing an explanation as to why current nutrition regimes don’t work for these patients, our work has identified where researchers should focus their efforts on finding better ways to keep intensive care patients as healthy as possible.’
