[Effect of an oral hyperproteic nutritional supplement in malnourished elderly patients in nursing homes]

Nutritional problems develop complications in geriatric patients and increase their morbidity and mortality. Hyperproteic nutritional supplements are one of the options to improve nutritional deficiencies.

To assess the beneficial effect and tolerance of one hyperproteic nutritional supplement (Ensure Plus High Protein, Abbott Laboratories, S.A.) in malnourished subjects over 65 years.

Observational, prospective, open, multicenter study. We included malnourished subjects over 65 years living in nursing homes located in Spain. Malnutrition was considered as GNRI score < 92 or BMI < 19. Before inclusion, we obtained signed informed consent of patients or their relatives. All participants received Ensure Plus High Protein for 8 weeks. The primary endpoints were changes observed in weight, BMI and GNRI.

We analyzed 255 evaluable patients valid for intention-to-treat (ITT) analysis and 243 for the per-protocol (PP) analysis; 69% (n = 172) were female and 31% (n = 77) male. The average protein amount administered was 51 g/day. At the end of the study, statistically significant differences (p < 0.001) were found in weight, BMI and GNRI when compared to baseline, both in the ITT and the PP analysis. The average weight increase was (mean +/- SE) 2.86 +/- 0.13 kg for PP analysis; 80% of participants (n = 202) achieved a weight gain > 1 kg and 96 patients (39.5% PP analysis) had a weight gain > 7%.

The addition of a hyperproteic oral nutritional supplement contributes positively in improving the nutritional status of our study malnourished geriatric patients in terms of significant increase in body weight, BMI and GNRI.