Controversy remains over the timing and initiation of parenteral nutrition in critically ill adults whose caloric targets cannot be met by enteral nutrition alone, which provides food through a tube placed in the nose, stomach, or small intestine.

Patients in the intensive care unit who do not tolerate adequate nutrition from tube feeding should wait a week before receiving intravenous (IV) feeding because, compared with early IV feeding, it enhances recovery from critical illness.

FLORHAM PARK, N.J., April 11, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new study conducted by the Center for the Evaluation of Value and Risk in Health at Tufts Medical Center concluded that variations in the administration of nutrition support can have a significant impact on health outcomes and the overall cost of care for critically ill adult hospital patients.

Contaminated total parenteral nutrition (TPN) fed intravenously to nineteen patients at six Alabama hospitals is a possible culprit in the death of nine patients, leaving 10 others seriously ill.

CINCINNATI, Jan.