Introduction: 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.
Objectives: 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.
Methods: 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.
Results: 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%.
Conclusions: 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.