What is Nutrition in ICU Patients (2025)?
Nutrition in ICU Patients (2025), edited by Andreas Rümelin, Konstantin Mayer, and Thomas W. Felbinger, is a clinical reference covering nutritional assessment, metabolism, enteral and parenteral nutrition, and nutrition therapy for critically ill patients. Published by Springer Nature, it is intended for clinicians, medical students, residents, and other healthcare professionals involved in intensive care and nutritional management.
Introduction
Nutrition is an essential component of intensive care medicine. Critically ill patients may experience profound metabolic changes, impaired gastrointestinal function, inflammation, altered immune responses, and dysfunction of vital organs. These challenges make nutritional management considerably more complex than simply providing sufficient calories and protein.
Nutrition in ICU Patients (2025) addresses this complexity through a multidisciplinary examination of nutritional physiology, nutritional assessment, clinical feeding strategies, and the nutritional considerations associated with specific critical illnesses.
Edited by Andreas Rümelin, Konstantin Mayer, and Thomas W. Felbinger, the book brings together chapters written by contributors working in relevant medical and scientific fields.
Published by Springer Nature Switzerland AG in 2025, this 282-page clinical reference examines nutrition as part of the broader management of critically ill patients.
Its scope extends from gastrointestinal physiology and protein metabolism to enteral and parenteral feeding, immunonutrition, organ dysfunction, severe trauma, sepsis, and ethical questions surrounding artificial nutrition.
What makes this subject particularly important is that nutritional requirements in critical illness differ substantially from those of healthy individuals. Hormonal changes, insulin resistance, increased protein breakdown, altered tissue perfusion, and gastrointestinal dysfunction can influence how nutrients are processed and used.
Nutritional therapy therefore requires clinical judgment, individualized assessment, and an understanding of the patient's changing condition.
This review of Nutrition in ICU Patients explores the book's structure, principal clinical topics, educational strengths, and potential uses in everyday practice. It is especially relevant to intensive care physicians, anesthesiologists, clinical nutrition professionals, residents, medical students, and healthcare educators seeking a structured introduction to nutrition in critically ill patients.
Book Overview
The following bibliographic details are identified in the book's publication information.
|
Detail |
Information |
|
Full title |
Nutrition in ICU Patients |
|
Edition |
Edition number not specified |
|
Editors |
Andreas Rümelin, Konstantin Mayer, Thomas W. Felbinger |
|
Publisher |
Springer Nature Switzerland AG |
|
Publication year |
2025 |
|
Language |
English |
|
Length |
282 pages |
|
Print ISBN |
978-3-032-00817-6 |
|
eBook ISBN |
978-3-032-00818-3 |
|
DOI |
10.1007/978-3-032-00818-3 |
|
Main specialty |
Critical care medicine and clinical nutrition |
|
Related specialties |
Anesthesiology, gastroenterology, metabolic medicine, nephrology,
hepatology, pulmonology, and intensive care |
The book is an English-language translation of the German-language edition Ernährung des Intensivpatienten, originally published in 2013. The 2025 publication is presented as a multidisciplinary clinical handbook, with contributions covering nutritional science and practical aspects of critical care.
Its intended audience includes healthcare professionals involved in caring for intensive care patients, particularly those who need to understand the relationship between nutritional therapy, metabolic disturbances, organ dysfunction, and clinical recovery.
WHAT THIS BOOK COVERS
The main educational strength of nutrition in ICU patients is its broad organization. Rather than treating nutrition as an isolated prescription of calories and protein, it connects physiological principles with feeding strategies, specific disease states, and wider aspects of intensive care.
The contents are divided into four major parts.
Part I: Basics of Nutrition in Critical Care
The opening section establishes the physiological and metabolic foundations needed to understand nutritional therapy in critically ill patients.
1. Physiology and pathophysiology of the gastrointestinal tract
This chapter examines gastrointestinal function and the disturbances that can complicate nutrition during intensive care. Topics include gastrointestinal motility, postoperative motility disorders, constipation, bacterial translocation, stress-related gastric lesions, impaired intestinal perfusion, and liver dysfunction associated with critical illness.
These subjects help explain why feeding tolerance cannot be assessed solely by the amount of nutrition prescribed. Gastrointestinal function, tissue perfusion, and the patient's overall physiological condition also influence nutritional management.
2. Nutritional status
Nutritional assessment is particularly important because malnutrition may already be present at ICU admission or develop during hospitalization. The chapter discusses assessment methods, definitions of malnutrition, nutritional risk, and the relationship between nutritional status and medical nutrition therapy.
This material is relevant to clinicians who need to identify nutritional problems, monitor changes over time, and avoid treating every critically ill patient according to the same nutritional assumptions.
3. Proteins and amino acids
Protein metabolism is a central concern in critical illness because metabolic stress can increase protein breakdown and contribute to muscle loss. This chapter focuses on proteins and amino acids in the context of ICU nutrition.
It provides a foundation for understanding why protein provision must be considered alongside the patient's metabolic state and broader nutritional requirements.
4. Carbohydrate metabolism and insulin resistance
Critical illness can alter glucose metabolism and insulin sensitivity. This chapter examines the implications of these changes for insulin management and medical nutrition therapy.
The topic is particularly relevant to clinicians balancing nutritional delivery with blood glucose management in patients experiencing stress-related metabolic disturbances.
5. Lipids in nutritional therapy
The final chapter in this part examines lipids and their role in nutritional support. It contributes to the broader understanding of how macronutrient composition fits into clinical nutrition planning.
Together, these five chapters establish the physiological knowledge required to understand the clinical sections that follow.
Part II: Clinical Application
The second part moves from foundational science toward practical nutritional management.
Nutritional adjustment addresses the need to adapt nutritional provision to the clinical circumstances of individual patients. This is an important theme throughout the book: the nutritional strategy appropriate for one phase of critical illness may not be appropriate for another.
Enteral and parenteral nutrition in the ICU examines the principal routes of artificial nutrition. Enteral nutrition delivers nutrients through the gastrointestinal tract, whereas parenteral nutrition provides nutrients intravenously. Understanding both approaches is essential when clinicians must consider gastrointestinal function, feeding tolerance, and the patient's clinical condition.
Immunonutrition and pharmaconutrition explore nutritional approaches involving the relationship between nutrient administration and physiological or immune processes.
An Excel worksheet for calculating an adapted nutrition plan is a particularly practical feature of the contents. It signals an effort to connect nutritional principles with the task of planning nutritional provision. The precise worksheet functionality and its compatibility with current software are not specified in the bibliographic information.
The section also addresses children and adolescents, recognizing the need to consider younger patients separately from the general adult ICU population.
Two additional chapters cover obesity and cachexia and gastrointestinal sonography in nutritional management. These subjects broaden the discussion beyond standard feeding calculations to include challenging nutritional states and a clinical perspective on gastrointestinal assessment.
For residents and clinicians, this section is particularly relevant to the transition from understanding nutritional physiology to applying that knowledge in a real intensive care environment.
Part III: Organ Dysfunction and Specific Conditions
The third part focuses on nutritional management in patients with particular diseases or forms of critical illness.
Its chapters cover:
- Kidney disease: Nutritional considerations in patients with renal dysfunction.
- Liver disease: Nutritional management in the setting of hepatic impairment.
- Lung disease: Nutritional issues associated with respiratory disease.
- Pancreatic disease: Nutritional care in ICU patients with pancreatic disorders, including acute pancreatitis.
- Severe traumatic brain injury: Nutritional management in patients with major neurological trauma.
- Sepsis: Nutritional therapy in the context of severe infection and systemic illness.
- Major burns: Nutritional management following extensive burn injury.
- Special enteral diets and synbiotics: A focused discussion of specialized enteral approaches.
This disease-oriented structure is useful because nutritional management is influenced by the condition causing ICU admission and by the organ systems affected.
A patient with renal dysfunction may present different nutritional considerations from a patient with severe burns or sepsis. Similarly, pancreatic disease and respiratory failure introduce clinical circumstances that cannot be addressed adequately by a single universal feeding strategy.
By organizing the material around specific conditions, the book provides readers with a framework for considering nutrition within the wider context of intensive care treatment.
Part IV: Special Aspects
The final part expands the discussion beyond nutrient composition and feeding routes.
Early mobilisation in the ICU addresses an important aspect of recovery and rehabilitation. Nutritional care and mobilisation are closely related clinical concerns because critically ill patients may experience muscle wasting, weakness, and impaired functional recovery.
The chapter encourages readers to consider mobilisation as part of a broader care strategy rather than viewing nutritional support as an intervention that operates independently of physical rehabilitation.
Ethical challenges of artificial nutrition in intensive care examine questions involving self-determination, authenticity, and the patient's best interests.
This subject is important in situations where the initiation or continuation of artificial nutrition raises difficult decisions. It adds an ethical dimension to the clinical material and recognizes that nutritional decisions are not determined by physiology alone.
Overall, the four-part organization gives Nutrition in ICU Patients a clear educational progression: from foundational physiology, through clinical application, to disease-specific management and wider considerations in intensive care.
Key Features
The book's most notable educational features include:
- Multidisciplinary coverage: It brings together gastrointestinal physiology, metabolism, nutritional assessment, feeding strategies, organ dysfunction, and rehabilitation.
- Clinical orientation: The chapters focus on problems encountered in intensive care rather than limiting the discussion to general nutritional science.
- Coverage of enteral and parenteral nutrition: Both major approaches to artificial nutrition are represented.
- Disease-specific material: Dedicated chapters address kidney, liver, lung, and pancreatic disease, as well as sepsis, burns, and severe traumatic brain injury.
- Attention to malnutrition: Nutritional status is treated as an important part of patient assessment and ongoing management.
- Practical planning component: The contents include an Excel worksheet chapter for calculating an adapted nutrition plan.
- Special populations: Children and adolescents receive a dedicated chapter, alongside coverage of obesity and cachexia.
- Integration with rehabilitation: Early mobilisation is included as a separate subject.
- Ethical discussion: The book considers questions surrounding artificial nutrition and patient-centred decision-making.
- Broad professional relevance: Its subject matter applies to clinicians and learners from several healthcare disciplines.
Who Should Read This Book?
Medical students
Students seeking to understand the fundamentals of clinical nutrition can use the book to connect metabolic physiology with gastrointestinal function, nutritional assessment, and critical illness. It may be especially useful during clinical rotations involving anesthesia, surgery, internal medicine, and intensive care.
Interns and residents
Junior doctors may benefit from the progression from basic concepts to clinical feeding strategies and condition-specific considerations. The book can support case-based learning and structured revision of ICU nutrition topics.
Intensive care specialists and other physicians
Clinicians working in intensive care, anesthesiology, gastroenterology, nephrology, hepatology, pulmonology, and related fields may find the disease-oriented chapters useful when reviewing the nutritional implications of specific conditions.
Clinical nutrition professionals and nurses
Dietitians and nurses involved in ICU care may use the material to strengthen their understanding of nutritional assessment, artificial feeding, gastrointestinal problems, and multidisciplinary management. The book's exact suitability for individual nursing or dietetics curricula is not specified.
Why This Book Is Useful
1. It connects nutrition with critical illness
One of the book's central educational themes is that nutrition in critically ill patients differs from nutrition in healthy individuals. Hormonal and metabolic changes, increased catabolism, altered immune function, and impaired organ function can all affect nutritional management.
This perspective helps readers understand why nutrition must be considered alongside the broader clinical picture.
2. It addresses nutritional assessment as well as treatment
Nutritional management involves more than choosing a feeding formula. Clinicians must also assess nutritional status, recognize malnutrition, monitor changes during hospitalization, and reconsider the nutritional plan as the patient's condition evolves.
The dedicated chapter on nutritional status gives this aspect appropriate attention.
3. It covers different routes of nutritional support
Enteral and parenteral nutrition are both represented in the clinical application section. This allows readers to study the principal approaches to artificial feeding within a single reference.
The book's contents establish that both routes are covered, although a reader should consult the individual chapters for specific protocols, contraindications, and clinical recommendations.
4. It considers organ-specific nutritional challenges
The chapters on kidney, liver, lung, and pancreatic disease help readers recognize that nutritional planning must take the underlying illness into account.
This makes the book relevant to multidisciplinary teams treating patients with complex conditions and multiple organ dysfunctions.
5. It acknowledges uncertainty in critical care nutrition
The foreword emphasizes that important questions remain about the optimal route, timing, and dose of nutritional support. It also discusses the need for adequately designed clinical trials and patient-centred outcomes.
This is an educational strength because it encourages readers to distinguish established knowledge from areas where evidence remains incomplete.
6. It connects nutrition with functional recovery
The inclusion of early mobilisation broadens the book's perspective beyond nutrient delivery. It encourages readers to consider nutritional support in relation to rehabilitation, muscle preservation, and functional outcomes.
The extent to which particular nutrition and mobilisation combinations improve outcomes remains a subject for clinical investigation, as the book itself acknowledges.
7. It is useful for structured learning
The four-part arrangement makes it possible to study individual subjects without losing sight of the overall clinical framework. Readers can begin with physiological principles, move to feeding strategies, and then review the nutritional considerations associated with particular diseases.
For busy clinicians, this structure can support targeted reading and topic-based revision.
Table of Contents Overview
The following overview follows the book's published contents and chapter organization.
|
Part |
Chapters |
Main focus |
|
Part I: Basics |
1–5 |
Gastrointestinal physiology, nutritional status, proteins and amino
acids, carbohydrate metabolism, insulin resistance, and lipids |
|
Part II: Clinical Application |
6–12 |
Nutritional adjustment, enteral and parenteral nutrition,
immunonutrition, nutrition planning, pediatric patients, obesity, cachexia,
and gastrointestinal sonography |
|
Part III: Organ Dysfunction and
Specific Conditions |
13–20 |
Kidney, liver, lung, and pancreatic disease; traumatic brain injury;
sepsis; major burns; and synbiotics |
|
Part IV: Special Aspects |
21–22 |
Early mobilisation and ethical challenges of artificial nutrition |
The complete contents list identifies 22 chapters. Individual chapter titles and their authors are available in the book's contents pages.
This arrangement supports several reading approaches. Students can follow the chapters sequentially, while experienced clinicians can begin with a particular disease or clinical question and consult the relevant section.
Strengths of the Book
A broad, clinically oriented scope
The book covers multiple dimensions of ICU nutrition, from gastrointestinal physiology to ethical decision-making. This breadth is valuable for readers who want to understand nutritional therapy as part of intensive care rather than as an isolated specialty.
A clear distinction between foundations and applications
Separating basic physiology from clinical application helps readers build the knowledge required to understand more complex nutritional problems. The subsequent disease-specific chapters reinforce the connection between general principles and individual clinical circumstances.
Recognition of the complexity of nutritional assessment
The dedicated attention to nutritional status is a meaningful strength. Identifying malnutrition and monitoring nutritional changes are important aspects of clinical care, and the book places these topics within its foundational section.
Inclusion of challenging clinical populations
Coverage of children and adolescents, obesity, cachexia, severe burns, sepsis, and organ dysfunction expands the discussion beyond a single typical ICU patient.
This is particularly useful for clinicians who encounter patients with different nutritional risks and metabolic requirements.
Attention to unresolved questions
The foreword openly acknowledges limitations in the evidence supporting some nutritional practices and emphasizes the importance of further research. This approach helps readers appreciate that clinical nutrition continues to evolve.
Consideration of rehabilitation and ethics
Early mobilisation and ethical challenges add useful dimensions to the discussion. These chapters recognize that nutritional care involves functional recovery, patient preferences, and clinical decision-making as well as nutrient administration.
Limitations
A balanced evaluation should distinguish between limitations that can be identified from the book's documented scope and those that cannot be established without a detailed comparison or appraisal of every chapter.
- The evidence base requires critical interpretation. The foreword explicitly notes that some nutritional practices have historically relied on expert opinion or lower-quality evidence. Readers should assess the strength and currency of recommendations rather than assuming every discussed intervention has definitive outcome evidence.
- The publication date does not guarantee that every recommendation reflects the latest guidance. Although the English-language edition was published in 2025, readers should verify time-sensitive protocols and recommendations against current professional guidelines and institutional practice.
- The edition number is not specified. The publication information identifies the 2025 English-language edition as a translation of the German edition published in 2013. The bibliographic information does not explicitly label it as a numbered edition.
- Its breadth may require supplementary reading. The book addresses numerous clinical areas. Readers seeking an exhaustive, disease-specific reference may need additional specialized texts or current clinical guidelines.
- Examination resources are not confirmed. The contents do not establish that the book includes a dedicated question bank, mock examinations, or board-style review questions.
These qualifications do not diminish the book's educational scope. They clarify how readers can use it responsibly as a clinical learning resource.
Comparison With Similar Books
Nutrition in ICU Patients occupies the intersection of clinical nutrition and intensive care medicine. Its distinguishing feature, based on its contents, is the combination of nutritional physiology, feeding strategies, organ-specific chapters, early mobilisation, and ethical considerations within one volume.
It can be positioned alongside established critical care nutrition references and specialist clinical nutrition textbooks, but a reliable ranking requires a direct comparison of editions, chapter depth, recommendations, and supplementary resources.
For a clinician seeking a multidisciplinary overview of nutrition in intensive care, the book's broad structure is a useful starting point. Readers who need highly specific dosing recommendations, updated protocols, or a detailed comparison of individual nutritional interventions should supplement their reading with current specialty guidance and relevant primary research.
Nutrition in ICU Patients (2025)
Or: Link 2
FAQs
Nutrition in ICU Patients is a clinical reference covering nutritional assessment, gastrointestinal physiology, metabolism, enteral and parenteral nutrition, and nutritional management in specific critical illnesses. It also discusses early mobilisation and ethical issues surrounding artificial nutrition.
The book was edited by Andreas Rümelin, Konstantin Mayer, and Thomas W. Felbinger. It was published by Springer Nature Switzerland AG in 2025.
Yes. Its progression from basic physiology to clinical application and disease-specific nutrition provides a framework for studying critical care nutrition. Students and residents can use it to support coursework, clinical rotations, and topic-based revision.
Yes. Chapter 7 is titled “Enteral and Parenteral Nutrition in the ICU.” The book also covers nutritional adjustment, immunonutrition, pharmaconutrition, and adapted nutrition planning.
The contents include kidney disease, liver disease, lung disease, pancreatic disease, severe traumatic brain injury, sepsis, and major burns. Other topics include obesity, cachexia, pediatric critical care nutrition, and gastrointestinal dysfunction.
The table of contents lists Chapter 9, “Excel Worksheet for Calculating an Adapted Nutrition Plan.” The precise features, compatibility, and functionality of the worksheet are not established by the contents listing alone.
It can support revision of core subjects such as nutritional assessment, metabolism, feeding routes, and disease-specific nutritional management. However, a dedicated question bank, examination blueprint, or board-review format is not confirmed, so candidates should supplement it with resources designed for their specific examinations.
No. It is best used as an educational reference rather than as a substitute for current guidelines, individualized clinical assessment, or institutional protocols. The book itself acknowledges that evidence in critical care nutrition is incomplete in several areas, making ongoing verification important.
Conclusion
Nutrition in ICU Patients (2025) is a multidisciplinary clinical reference that examines nutritional care from foundational physiology to practical feeding strategies, organ-specific challenges, and ethical decision-making. Edited by Andreas Rümelin, Konstantin Mayer, and Thomas W. Felbinger, the book brings together 22 chapters organized into four major sections.
Its main educational value lies in its broad coverage. Readers can study gastrointestinal function, malnutrition, protein and carbohydrate metabolism, enteral and parenteral nutrition, and the nutritional considerations associated with conditions such as sepsis, kidney disease, severe burns, and traumatic brain injury.
The inclusion of early mobilisation and ethical questions further broadens its perspective, emphasizing that nutritional management forms part of comprehensive critical care.
For medical students, residents, intensive care clinicians, dietitians, nurses, and researchers, the book can provide a structured foundation for understanding nutrition in critically ill patients. It is most effective when used alongside clinical experience, current professional guidelines, and critical appraisal of the available evidence.
For readers seeking a broad introduction to nutrition in ICU patients, this book offers a useful starting point for exploring how nutritional assessment and therapy fit within the complex management of critical illness.
Disclaimer
MedBook 4 Free does not own the copyrights to this video/book/software. We’re sharing this with our audience ONLY for educational purposes, and we strongly encourage visitors to purchase original, licensed software/books.
If the copyright owner wants us to remove this software/book, please contact us immediately. You can email [email protected] for all DMCA/removal requests.