Glutamine-Enriched Enteral Nutrition in Very Low-Birth-Weight Infants

Cytokine responses in very low birth weight infants receiving glutamine-enriched enteral nutrition.

OBJECTIVE Very low birth weight (VLBW) infants receiving glutamine-enriched enteral nutrition may present with a lower infection rate, which may result from enhanced antimicrobial innate or Th1 cytokine responses. We investigated whether glutamine-enriched enteral nutrition in VLBW infants increased these cytokine responses following in vitro stimulation of whole blood cells. METHODS In a dou...

Glutamine-enriched enteral nutrition in very low birth weight infants. Design of a double-blind randomised controlled trial [ISRCTN73254583]

BACKGROUND Enteral feeding of very low birth weight (VLBW) infants is a challenge, since metabolic demands are high and administration of enteral nutrition is limited by immaturity of the gastrointestinal tract. The amino acid glutamine plays an important role in maintaining functional integrity of the gut. In addition, glutamine is utilised at a high rate by cells of the immune system. In crit...

Glutamine-enriched enteral nutrition in very low birth weight infants. Design of a double-blind randomised controlled trial [ISRCTN3254583]

Long-term effects of neonatal glutamine-enriched nutrition in very-low-birth-weight infants.

Several studies in very-low-birth-weight (VLBW) infants have investigated the effect of parenteral or enteral glutamine supplementation on morbidity, mortality, and outcome in the neonatal period. No evidence of toxicity of glutamine supplementation was found in these clinical trials, but the results for efficacy on a limited number of outcomes have been mixed. The use of glutamine supplementat...

Nutrition of very low birth-weight infants

Background Numerous studies have underlined the importance of early feeding on shortand long-term development of very low birth-weight (VLBW) neonates [1,2]. Nutrition of preterm infants may be divided in two subsequent periods: the early adaptive or “transition” period from birth to the second week of life followed by the “stable-growing” period up to discharge from the neonatal unit. Dependin...