The aim of nutritional support is to maintain the metabolic function of cells, organs and the whole body, and also to reduce the total energy consumption, finally promotes the patients to recover. Infectious patients are often in the status of high catabolism and negative nitrogen balance. It is necessary for such patients to receive nutritional support, however, the performance is difficult because of the high catabolism status and disorder of physiological function. What is more, inappropriate performance may lead to even worse outcome. Accordingly, the current clinical researches focus on how to improve the effects of nutritional support in infectious patients. Several aspects on this issue including the time, route, dose, metabolic intervention and immune modulation are discussed.
