Nutrition management in acute pancreatitis: Clinical practice consideration

Core Tip

Core tip: Nutrition intervention helps prevent malnutrition and is a key to reduce inflammation, complications, and death in acute pancreatitis. Current evidence supports the benefits of early enteral nutrition in severe pancreatitis. Gastric and jejunal feeding are equally effective, and polymeric formula is safe, compared to peptide-based formula. Parenteral nutrition should be considered in patients who cannot tolerate enteral nutrition. According to recent data, nutritional supplements, including glutamine, probiotics, omega-3 fatty acids, and antioxidants, may contribute to positive outcomes. While intravenous glutamine shows promising benefits in patients receiving total parenteral nutrition, further studies in other nutritional supplements are needed.