Future directions in nutrition support

The provision of nutrition support to patients in hospital and at home has advanced significantly over the past decade. Enteral or parenteral nutrition can be safely administered in patients of any age, size or disease state when care is taken to individually tailor nutrition therapy and monitor for potential complications. Nutritional support is increasingly recognised as an integral component of disease treatment protocols. In the future, it is likely that nutrition support will increasingly focus on modifying specific metabolic effects of disease by disease-specific nutrient manipulation. Adjuncts to nutritional therapy, such as growth factors, may provide opportunities to enhance intestinal adaptation and modify the metabolic response to stress. Advances in enteral and parenteral nutrition delivery systems will continue to improve with the aim of providing safe, effective and socially acceptable techniques of delivering long-term nutrition support. Nutrition support teams have proven their cost-effectivenes in the past decade; however, they are under increasing pressure to adapt to ever changing healthcare systems. The next decade will provide challenges and opportunities not only for the enhancement of nutritional management but also for the provision of evidence that specific nutritional intervention improves clinical outcome.